Awam Mavimbela is a registered social worker, former Walter Sisulu University Lecturer, PhD candidate with University of the Free State, and a published author
Apartheid-era education policies, rooted in oppression and segregation, have necessitated post-apartheid efforts to redress historical injustices by broadening access to the university system. Education remains a critical instrument for addressing inequality and alleviating poverty.
However, despite gains in access, post-apartheid South African youth are now confronted by a new barrier, student debt.
Even within this debt crisis, the enduring deliberate inequalities of apartheid are evident. Institutions historically serving white students tend to have significantly lower levels of student debt compared to universities predominantly attended by African, Coloured, and Indian students.
For instance, as of 2021, student debt at Tshwane University of Technology amounted to R4.4 billion; Cape Peninsula University of Technology stood at R1.13 billion; Central University of Technology at R1.78 billion; and the University of KwaZulu-Natal and the University of the Witwatersrand at R1.7 billion and R1.062 billion, respectively.
In stark contrast, Stellenbosch University’s student debt was only R16.3 million; Rhodes University, R15.3 million; and the University of Cape Town (UCT), the lowest, at R14.1 million.
The consequences of student debt are severe. They include withholding of academic certificates, exclusion from further studies, and blocked registration for subsequent academic years.
These frustrations contributed to the #FeesMustFall protests of 2015/2016, when students, particularly from marginalised communities, reached a breaking point.
While student demographics are not always disaggregated by race within institutions, without doubt African, Coloured, and Indian students bear the brunt of student debt an inference supported by national socio-economic disparities released by StatsSA yearly.
Thus, student debt emerges as a modern mechanism of continued systemic oppression in South Africa, reinforcing historical patterns of exclusion and undermining constitutional promises.
Section 29(1)(b) of the South African Constitution obliges the state to make higher education "progressively available and accessible."
This means there should be funding (NSFAS) reform as the current leads to student debts.
The existing debt crisis contradicts this mandate, challenging the myth that access to education is purely merit-based.
Instead, structural inequalities ensure that student debt perpetuates intergenerational poverty as per apartheid policies.
During apartheid, racial exclusion from education was legally enforced through instruments such as the Bantu Education Act of 1953, the Indian Education Act, and the Coloured Persons Education Act.
Today, universities—ostensibly democratic institutions—function as more subtle vehicles of exclusion through financial mechanisms, particularly student debt.
The discourse around student experiences is increasingly colour-blind, overlooking the racialised nature of economic and educational policy legacies.
Within a neoliberal framework, student debt is framed as a personal burden rather than a manifestation of systemic socio-economic oppression.
This neo-liberal individualistic perspective erases the structural dimensions of debt, which enforces racial and class stratification.
As such, debt is not merely a technical or financial issue, it is youth symbolic violence (continuation of oppression).
For Black graduates, many of whom are financially responsible for extended families, student debt is a source of mental illnesses like, trauma, stress, and delayed economic participation.
Historic debts contribute to the intergenerational mental health burdens—depression, anxiety, social isolation, and trauma—among previously oppressed populations.
Furthermore, the student debt crisis reveals how universities have become corporatised entities, dependent on student fees for financial viability.
Students are no longer just recipients of education; they are financiers sustaining the neoliberal university model.
This article contends that student debt is a consequence of apartheid-era oppression and calls for solutions beyond the current frameworks, such as debt cancellation, free education, or universal basic income.
Without reimagining education funding, existing approaches risk entrenching the status quo of racial inequality, thereby serving elite interests.
Student debt also undermines initiatives like the 1997 White Paper for Social Welfare, which identified education as a vehicle for redressing historical imbalances (poverty).
The fragmented social welfare systems experienced by Africans, Coloureds, and Indians cannot be remedied without addressing the racialised nature of educational debt.
There is an urgent need for race-disaggregated data on student debt to expose its structural roots and prevent future crises, such as another decolonial movement akin to #FeesMustFall.
Unless the state acknowledges and addresses these youth systemic instruments of oppression, South Africa risks further unrest reminiscent of the Soweto Uprising or even the Kenyan student rebellions.
The time to act is now.
The opinions expressed in this article does not necessarily reflect the views of the editor and the newspaper.