Manager of Alumni Relations at Rhodes University. 

How is Rhodes handling and prioritizing the growing number of financial aid requests from students?

• Sound academic performance
• Proven financial need
• Willingness to make a minimal financial commitment to the University to pay fees
• Mostly South African citizens
• Signing of the acknowledgement of debt in instances where the family is unable to settle fees in full by the end of the academic year. This is done to ensure that academically sound students are permitted to progress to the next academic level so that the University is able to collect the funds once they have graduated and secured permanent employment.
  In addition to the above the University’s Isivivane Fund makes it possible for the University to tap into new money predominantly from the government SETAs which was not the case in the past. In the previous academic year R7.3 million was raised via Isivivane from the various SETAs to assist 64 students with funding ranging from R80,000 to full funding.

The Vice-Chancellor also provides a guarantee for students with strong academic performance for them to be able to register. The guarantee is not in monetary terms but rather a waiver for them to be able to register on the strength of their academic performance. During the course of the academic year some of those students are able to secure full funding through our fundraising efforts.

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