High Student Accommodation Costs Making Higher Education Unaffordable

The Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Higher Education, Mr Tebogo Letsie, has warned that the high cost of student accommodation is making education extremely expensive and could exclude poor students from accessing higher education in South Africa.

Speaking during an oversight visit to the University of Mpumalanga yesterday, the Chairperson raised a concern that student accommodation has been turned into a huge profit-making scheme by private accommodation providers across the country.

“Education is a social good, but we have people who decide they are going to make huge profits. The exorbitant cost of student accommodation is making education unaffordable, this is tactical exclusion for the poor,” he said.

Some accommodation providers charge students more than the National Student Financial Aid capped rates forcing students to pay the difference, or leaving them with huge debts to the university, in cases when the institutions cover that amount on their behalf.

To try find solutions to the challenges, the committee has organised a colloquium on student accommodation to be held on 28 August 2026, and invited the Competition Commission, the Estate Agency Affairs Board, NSFAS and other relevant stakeholders to attend.

Per Kind Favour of APO

Africa Fact: Apparently the Monomotapan royal palace at Mount Fura had chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. An eighteenth century geography book provided the following data: “The inside consists of a great variety of sumptuous apartments, spacious and lofty halls, all adorned with a magnificent cotton tapestry, the manufacture of the country. The floors, cielings [sic], beams and rafters are all either gilt or plated with gold curiously wrought, as are also the chairs of state, tables, benches &c. The candle-sticks and branches are made of ivory inlaid with gold, and hang from the ceiling by chains of the same metal, or of silver gilt.”