Meanwhile, a quiet hunt for solutions

WHILE bricks and stun grenades flew this week, the much-derided Fees Commission was quietly bouncing ideas.

Because it was established by President Jacob Zuma, it has been dismissed (and disrupted) by the Fallists as a cynical dodge. But many are engaging seriously with the commission: 179 institutions and individuals have made submissions to date.

Hearings will continue into next year, and the final report is due by June. In its preliminary report, due in November, Judge Jonathan Heher and his panel will seek to chart a temperate path between the hot rage of the Fallists and the cold realities of a paralysed state.

“The preliminary report won’t consist merely of observations,” commission spokesman Musa Ndwandwe said. “We have to respond to the urgency of this debate, and we’re aware that a lot depends on the recommendations.”

The student activists have a potent moral argument that higher education should be free for those who cannot afford it, given the inequities of our past and present. But the authorities — Higher Education Minister Blade Nzimande, the National Treasury, the vice-chancellors — also have a strong case that university education cannot be free, and certainly not for all students.

The commission has heard a range of measured voices, including some student bodies, that university students in South Africa are a fortunate few, most on course to join the economic elite, and thus should not be privileged over the other 85% of young people who are stuck in shoddy technical and vocational education and training colleges or unemployed.

Most submissions argue that the new system should remain loan-based, although the structure needs to change.

While an income tax hike for the rich was called for by NGO Equal Education and student bodies, this would be a hard sell to a nervy Treasury, given the scale of government waste and risk of speeding disinvestment. A graduate tax has been floated, but this would risk losses from emigrating graduates, and a flat REALITIES: Judge Heher rate would advantage graduates of more expensive courses.

The University of Johannesburg called for an increase of the state subsidy to 1% of GDP, from 0.71%, to yield R11-billion a year and allow for fee cuts. But it did not suggest what else should TOUGH TALK: Sizwe Nxasana be sacrificed to allow this.

The University of the Witwatersrand argued for new ways to share the load between the state and business. It proposed that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme provide full funding (R110 000-R120 000) to a wide pool of first-years, with business stepping in with loans from second year.

Wits also proposed that universities team up and issue student debt bonds to private and public investors, and that JSElisted companies get tax rebates for funding students via a sovereign wealth fund.

NSFAS talked tough about its spiralling bad debt — calling for huge capital injections, but also for stricter selection of students who will complete degrees on time and start repaying loans, and for higher interest rates (currently 80% of the repo rate).

Under former FirstRand boss Sizwe Nxasana, the scheme is clearly not interested in currying favour with activists.

And the activists? With a couple of exceptions, notably the Students for Law and Social Justice’s meticulous analysis of the state’s constitutional obligation to deliver higher education, their submissions are badly written, badly researched and riddled with magical thinking.

Spend the Government Employees Pension Fund on students, demanded the South African Students’ Congress. Do away with the ministry of sport, said the South African Union of Students. The various Fallist factions have refused even to address the commission.

The students’ anger is genuine and justified — the system has let them down. But anger in itself is not an argument.

With a few exceptions, the activists’ submissions are badly written