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On Monday 19 April the DA Youth will be running a campaign across 22 campuses nationwide inviting students to sign a petition calling for an increase in the financial aid threshold of the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) from R120,000 to R160,000. The current threshold of R120,000 is stifling the creation of real opportunities in our higher education system - last year R40 million was returned to the NSFAS as universities could not find enough students to meet the threshold, even while thousands of struggling students who fell only marginally above the threshold were left to struggle financially.

Currently, a student only qualifies for financial aid from the NSFAS if their parent(s) earn R120,000 or less per year. We believe that this is too low - as the DA's shadow minister of higher education Dr Wilmot James has pointed out, it excludes those at the top end of the working class, and at the bottom end of the middle class. In fact, we have seen countless examples of students who fail to meet the threshold nevertheless having to quit their studies because of the high costs associated with tertiary study. With funds sitting idle in the NSFAS coffers, we cannot imagine how raising the threshold would be anything other than the sensible, obvious choice.

Blade Nzimande Minister of Higher Education and Training was last year asked twice by the Democratic Alliance to adjust the threshold but he has repeatedly refused. The DA Youth is hoping that its call along with thousands of other financially distressed students will show the minister how out of touch the current threshold is with the financial needs of students. The DA Youth's campaign will run until Friday 23 April. Thereafter the petition will be sent to the Minister of Higher Education and Training urging him to reconsider his decision so that more students can benefit from much needed financial aid.