Journal of Education, 2017
Issue 68, http://joe.ukzn.ac.za

Does financial assistance undermine

academic success? Experiences of ‘at risk’

students in a South African university 

Samukelisiwe Mngomezulu,

Rubby Dhunpath and Nicholas Munro
(Received 6 September 2016; accepted 4 April 2017)

Abstract

In the current #FeesMustFall activism, financial relief and support for higher education
students are promoted as strategies to enhance access, persistence and progression in higher
education. However, despite the increases in government and allied funding for higher
education students, high-attrition and unsustainably low graduation rates persist. This
reality has dire consequences for individual students, their families and the capacity of
higher education to meet the development needs of the country. This article draws on data
from an ethnographic study which used interpretive methods to explore the academic
experiences of South African university students who despite receiving financial assistance
for their studies, continued to be classified ‘at-risk’ of academic failure and exclusion. The
findings suggest that an ostensibly positive outcome (such as receiving financial assistance)
may have unintended negative academic consequences, including increasing students’ risk
of academic exclusion, by virtue of the tendency for such funds to be utilised to ameliorate
family poverty. While the cultural capital framework is a valuable tool in understanding
student spending behaviours from economically advantaged communities, its explanatory
power diminishes when applied to students from low socio-economic backgrounds, who
manage competing demands on their student funding. The authors signal the need for higher
education institutions to design alternative funding models and interventions to curb
financial illiteracy in order to minimise the potential for misappropriation of financial
assistance, which compromises academic success. 

Introduction

In the last two decades, student enrolments have expanded considerably and
resulted in increased access for students from diverse backgrounds, including
first generation students (Gladieux and Swail, 2000; Council on Higher



132        Journal of Education, No. 68, 2017

Education [CHE], 2010; Bailey and Dynarski, 2011). In South Africa, total
student enrolment in 1994 was around 425 000 students (CHE, 2010), and by
2013, enrolment had increased to just under one million students (CHE,
2015). The proportion of African student enrolments has also grown
considerably, from 43% in 1998 (CHE, 2010) to 71% in 2013 (CHE, 2015).
The increased enrolment of African students in higher education suggests
increasing access for students from economically and educationally
disadvantaged groups. However, increasing access has not resulted in
increasing success. Despite government and other forms of financial
assistance, a substantial number of students fail to complete their degrees in
minimum time, or drop out of programmes completely (CHE, 2014). 

Student poverty and the lack of sufficient funding have consistently been
cited as key reasons for student academic failure and progression difficulties
(Africa, 2005; Letseka and Maile, 2008; CHE, 2010). The Presidential Task
Team (PTT) on higher education funding (2016) underscores the pressure of
persistent underfunding of higher education in a “context of increasing
enrolment growth which leads to most institutions passing an increasing
burden of costs onto students through high annual fee increases”  (CHE,
2016, p.6). This article explores the phenomenon of academic failure and poor
academic progression in spite of the availability of student financial support.
The study reported in this article sought to understand and explain how the
choices that students from families with low socio-economic status make in
using financial assistance, can compromise their academic success, and
predispose them to risk of academic exclusion. The evidence suggests that
while financial assistance in itself is not a risk factor, students’ perceptions of
their needs and their ability to prioritise how to meet these needs, can impact
on the choices they make which in turn can impact academic success. This
article will attempt to analyse the problem through the eyes of students who
have experienced dilemmas associated with financial assistance and the
competing demands on such assistance. The article will posit that the current
loosely regulated funding regime creates conditions and opportunities for
students to misappropriate financial assistance for other imperatives, deemed
more urgent, especially for students from low income households. Alternative
funding models with greater accountability measures and financial literacy are
needed to curb misappropriation of student funding.



Mngomezulu, Dhunpath and Munro: Does financial assistance . . .       133

Funding and financial assistance challenges in higher

education

Hayward and Ncayiyana (2014) note that while most academic institutions,
even in prosperous industrialised nations, face financial problems, such
challenges are more keenly felt in Africa than elsewhere. Expansion and
massification have placed unprecedented strain on the national fiscus and its
ability to meet multiple demands such as health care, housing and social
welfare. Moreover, using their own income, without assistance, the majority
of South African households are unable to support a dependent at university
(in terms of study and related accommodation and living costs) (CHE, 2016).
The current wave of student protests over fees in South Africa (# Fees Must
Fall), and the emergent debates around higher education funding (Butler-
Adam, 2015), point to the consequences of increasing costs of higher
education in the contexts of declining employment opportunities. Many
students from low socio economic status families seek (higher) education as a
mechanism to disrupt blockages to intergenerational mobility and progression
(Blanden and Macmillan, 2014). Propelled by common discourses around
education as a solution to poverty and underpinned by Section 29 of the South
African Constitution (Republic of South Africa (RSA), 1996) which affirms
the right to basic and further education, South Africans have come to expect
that education can and must be ‘provided’ to all. Notwithstanding the nuanced
conceptions of access, success, and throughout in higher education,
expectations of education being ‘provided’ are resonant with Morrow’s
(1994) notion of a ‘culture of entitlement’ which he claims often accompany
political-educational protest movements and mindsets. Yet, the quest for
education and consequent liberation from poverty can generate unintended
consequences for academic success and throughput, as this article will
demonstrate. Mindful of the challenges of affordability and its impact on
students with insufficient financial resources, the question of how they can be
financially supported to achieve academic success and economic
independence has been a concern for government and non-government
entities for some time (see Gladieux and Swail, 1998).

In South Africa, a funding framework for higher education was introduced in
2004 (DHET, 2004), closely linking funding to student success and
throughput (Essack, Barnes, Jackson, Majozi, McInerney, Mtshali, Naidoo,
Oosthuizen, and Suleman, 2009; CHE, 2010). However, establishing a tight
causal link between funding and academic success may not be a useful one.



134        Journal of Education, No. 68, 2017

Breier (2010) observes that despite general consensus on the impact of
adequate financial assistance on academic success, the phenomenon of
student success should not simplistically be linked to financial assistance
alone, but requires a more nuanced understanding of other factors such as
institutional and social forces that contribute to student success. Indeed, the
effect of inadequate financial assistance should not be dismissed as
inconsequential to the biological and psycho-social health of students,
especially since higher education inflation is historically higher than the
general inflation index (CHE, 2016). It has been established that students with
insufficient financial resources struggle to afford escalating student fees,
accommodation, meals and books and erratic transportation costs (Budlender
and Woolard, 2006). What is not adequately established in the literature is the
impact on academic performance when students from poverty stricken
backgrounds are also under pressure to support their families with their
limited financial assistance.  

Bourdieu (2011) asserts that students enter learning institutions from different
structural positions in society, and are therefore endowed with differential
echelons of cultural capital (i.e. knowledge and skills that can be transferred
from one structural position to another). Students from privileged
backgrounds are more likely to have acquired forms of cultural capital from
their schooling and upbringing that more easily enable accessing the complex
and subtle (academic) practices in higher education that lead to academic
success. Whereas students can be granted physical access to higher education
(through space and financial assistance), epistemological access cannot “be
supplied . . . [or] ‘done’ to the learner . . . [or] ‘automatically’ transmitted to
those who . . .attend classes regularly” (Morrow, 1994, p.40). Epistemological
access can only be earned through an individual student’s agency and efforts,
and agency and effort are often made easier depending on the cultural capital
that a student brings into the learning environment. Similarly, Bourdieu
(2011) highlights the crisis of student alienation: of having to navigate
unfamiliar and sometimes hostile university environments, while negotiating
additional cost drivers associated with university life. The central element of
Bourdieu and Morrow’s work is that it is necessary to recognise the socio-
economic and sociocultural contexts that may impact on individual students’
capacity for agency, self-actualisation, and academic success in higher
education. Morrow’s (1994) notion of the culture of entitlement (introduced
earlier in relation to the demands for education provision) is also useful at this
point as he claims that the culture of entitlement undermines the role of
individual agency in academic and educational achievement. If students do



Mngomezulu, Dhunpath and Munro: Does financial assistance . . .       135

not understand how academic success in higher education may be negotiated,
they (and their teachers) may anticipate less from themselves in the learning
and achievement trajectory. Similarly, behaviours and attitudes around
responsible money management are likely to be located within the family and
the sociocultural environment. The complexities of money management in
extended families with limited earning power should not be understated.
Additionally, students from working-class backgrounds are also more likely
to experience “academic disengagement and a less welcoming campus climate
in relation to their peers from upper income families” (Soria,Weiner and Lu,
2014, p.5). Feelings of disengagement could motivate students to seek
affirmation to compensate for such feelings. Bourdieu (2011) argues that
cultural capital is determined by familiarity with the dominant discourses in a
society. In the context of student financial assistance, discourses on how
families conceive of ‘income’ and their notions of budgeting, has implications
for how such income is disbursed among the extended family. 

Methodology 

Data was drawn from the first author’s doctoral study. A qualitative approach
was used as it enabled the researcher to make sense of students’ experiences,
perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours in a given cultural context
(Clissett, 2008). A case study research design was selected for an in-depth
enquiry into the phenomenon of students who received financial assistance
and became ‘at-risk’ of academic exclusion (Maree, 2007). Email invitations
to participate in the study were sent to 30 students who met the study’s
inclusion criteria. All students were reading for a Bachelor of Education
degree in the School of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in
2010. The researcher purposively sampled (academically) ‘at-risk’ students
who were receiving financial assistance, aiming to elicit in-depth descriptions
of their experiences.

In acknowledging the financial challenges which contribute to students’
enrolment and academic programme choices, the Department of Education
(DOE) introduced various funding schemes that aim to increase the number of
qualified teachers being produced by the higher education system (Onwu and
Sehoole, 2011). The Funza Lushaka Bursary Programme, NSFAS, and the
National Skills bursary are examples of such funding schemes. Students who
are awarded financial aid via the NSFAS and other funding schemes generally



136        Journal of Education, No. 68, 2017

receive an additional stipend for incidental academic and living expenses. Of
the 30 students who were invited to participate in the study, 12 responded and
participated in a focus group discussion. Of these 12 students, six introduced
content on ‘funding’ into the focus group discussion. A data set derived from
four participants who produced particularly rich accounts was drawn upon for
this article. The students were informed that their participation in the study
was voluntary and that they could withdraw from the study at any time.
Interpretive phenomenological analysis was employed to analyse the
interview and focus group discussion transcripts. This analysis assisted in
identifying repeated themes across transcripts. The approach that was used
involved taking each case (i.e. students), describing it, and then inductively
identifying themes from the data. Inductive analysis allows patterns, themes
and categories to be constructed from the data, rather than being imposed on
them prior to data collection and analysis (Rule and John, 2011).

Biographical snapshots of participants

This section introduces the student participants by providing snapshots of
their backgrounds. The four students, who received financial assistance,
provided rich accounts of their experiences in managing their funding
obligations. Some of the students received National Student Financial Aid
Scheme (NSFAS) financial assistance based on their family’s socio-economic
status, and some received financial assistance based on merit and subject
priority area (e.g. the Funza Lushaka Bursary Programme for teacher
trainees).

Sizwe, a first language isiZulu speaker, is a 22-year-old male from an urban
area who attended a private primary school and moved to a public school for
his secondary education. Both his parents are alive and his father is a
principal at one of the secondary schools in their neighbourhood. Sizwe, who
stays in a campus residence, was awarded a Funza Lushaka bursary in his first
year of study because of his good performance in grade 12. 

Sabrina comes from a middle class family of four where she is the eldest
sibling. Her father passed away during early childhood and her mother is
employed as a chef. Two of Sabrina’s siblings are still in school while her
sister is registered for the first year of a Bachelor’s degree at UKZN.
Sabrina’s home language is English and she attended her primary and



Mngomezulu, Dhunpath and Munro: Does financial assistance . . .       137

secondary education in an urban area. Although, she had originally hoped to
pursue a career in nursing, Sabrina’s “mom insisted that [she] take teaching”.
She was awarded a Funza Lushaka bursary for her good performance in grade
12. This financial assistance was meant for Sabrina’s studies, but she also
used it to cover costs associated with her sister’s studies.

Zodumo, a first language isiZulu speaker, is a 23-year-old female from a rural
area. She attended both her primary and secondary school in a disadvantaged
area. Zodumo’s aunt has supported her throughout her education as both her
parents passed away. She received financial aid (NSFAS) in her first year of
study, and she now uses part of this funding to support her aunt. 

Khethiwe is a 24-year-old female from a township and her home language is
isiZulu. She completed both her primary and secondary education in a
disadvantaged area. She has a very supportive mother who paid her secondary
school fees. Khethiwe’s first year of study was funded by the National Skills
Fund, which is a one year scarce skills bursary. She stays at an off-campus
residence and commutes by bus to campus. 

Emerging trends from the data

Use of funding to support family needs

Participants in the study indicated that coming from a poor home or a working
class family exacerbates their inability to sustain satisfactory performance in
their studies. Students receiving bursaries for their studies are sometimes
expected to redirect part of the funding they receive to their families so as to
alleviate the family’s living conditions. As the students explained, the
suffering of their families contributed to their psychological schemas which
consequently impacted on their academic performance. The following
quotation illustrates how students redirect their financial assistance to support
their families.

I have a bursary, Funza Lushaka bursary, I can’t use it for my studies
only. I also use it to pay for my sister’s university fees. I don’t have to
stress about my single parent having to struggle to pay for my
transport fees and my sister’s university fees. It also took a lot of
pressure from my mother. Now I can’t really buy all what I need for my



138        Journal of Education, No. 68, 2017

modules because I have to use my scholarship to look after my family.
(Sabrina)

Students are faced with conflicting pressures of either prioritising their own,
or their family’s financial needs. Redirecting funds toward the family can be
seen as a generous gesture but it sabotages a students’ own financial resources
which have been allocated for the express purpose of supporting them through
their studies.
 

My aunt, who is receiving social grant, helped me to pay for [my]
school fees. At university I have NSFAS bursary which is supporting
me. I also use this NSFAS to support [family] at home because there is
no one who is working. I received funding, but moved out of campus
because it is too expensive. I wanted to send money home but my new
accommodation is very far from campus. Now I cannot use the library
in the evenings. (Zodumo)

For Sabrina, Zodumo, Khethiwe and Sizwe, it is evident that at least three
factors contributed to their low academic performance and subsequent ‘at-
risk’ status. The first factor is using money awarded for study funding, for
financially supporting families at home. This redirection of funding
compromises academic performance in that it reduces the amount of funding
available for study related expenses. The second factor that contributed to the
students’ low academic performance pertains to their anxiety and concern
with the welfare of their families at home. Their constant apprehension about
how their families at home are struggling to meet daily expenses leads to a
decision to provide for their families by using money received from their
funders. Preoccupation with their families’ welfare results in students’
attention to their studies being negatively impacted as indicated by Khethiwe. 

I come from a poor family; I use money from National Skills Fund
bursary to support my family. As long as I have money left for me to eat
and I know that at least my family can buy few things to keep them for a
while. I worry a lot about them. (Kethiwe) 

The third factor which seems to have contributed to the students’ poor
academic performance relates to the choices students make when faced with
competing demands on the limited funds they have. This results in their funds
being spread so thinly that the purposes for which the funds were intended are
not achieved. Coupled with the generally inadequate financial literacy skills,



Mngomezulu, Dhunpath and Munro: Does financial assistance . . .       139

the consequent misappropriation of money leads students to prematurely
being heralded into the ‘at risk’ category, from which it is often difficult to be
rehabilitated.

Financial illiteracy

A lack of budgeting skills and a lack of experience in handling money
resulted in Sizwe’s focus being shifted from studying. 

When I got a bursary things fell apart having to experience having
money in my account for the first time. There have been such as
freedom, it’s tough, having access to funding sometimes you misuse the
money, handling the money and using it for wrong things. (Sizwe)

Sizwe received funds at the point of his entry into higher education, based on
merit. He refers to ‘things falling apart’ as soon as he received financial
assistance. Inexperience in money handling, excitement at accessing money
for the first time, difficulties of not knowing what to do with the money, and a
lack of budgeting skills contributed to his misuse of funds which in turn
resulted in his poor performance. The ‘freedom’ of having received funds
becomes an inhibiting factor to his academic success. This finding suggests
that as much as bursaries are intended to make students’ lives less stressful,
they sometimes have the opposite effect.

All students in the study acknowledged that a lack of budgeting skills and
misdirection of funding contributed to their poor academic performance. The
lack of experience and inability to handle money responsibly according to
priorities proved to be an inexorable challenge for students who receive
financial assistance, especially where students do not have the requisite skills
to manage such funds. It is evident that students would benefit from prior
training in and orientation to money management and budgeting as a life skill
before transitioning from high school to further education. This skill should
assist them with becoming more independent and responsible at money
management, and enhance the likelihood that financial assistance intended to
make students’ lives less stressful and help them to meet financial needs does
not become a hindrance to success. 



140        Journal of Education, No. 68, 2017

Renegotiating identity

Whilst funding may not be a challenge for middle class families, other
distractions subject them to the same levels of risk as disadvantaged students.
In the absence of little or no prior experience in managing finances, without
parental supervision, students’ new found financial independence and
decisional power to spend at will, can and does lead them to make
inappropriate choices on what and how to utilise the available funding. This is
evident, for instance, in some students’ preoccupation with being trendy and
the temptation to party to satisfy expectations of friends and peers. Peer
pressure is another critical influence on how students who receive funding
make choices and decision on how to spend funds. 

I always wondered how other students afford to have all these
things. . .(so) I used my money to buy a new cell phone and new
clothes. . .(and) I was able to go out with my friends. (Sizwe)

Students faced with the pressure to acquire certain status symbols are afforded
the opportunity to demonstrate a new social status on and off campus. They
shift from who they were to what they have always aspired to be (for instance,
in their choice of fashionable clothing and cell phones). The shift into who a
student aspires to be may compromise his/her academic performance if this
shift involves redirecting study related financial assistance to non-study
related expenses. In some ways, this shift may be conceptualised as the
consequence of how a new cultural environment (i.e., a university) could
impinge on a student’s sense of self-worth, which in turn influences their
values and what they deem valuable as an expression of their emergent
identities in the new cultural field.

The paradox of financial assistance

The ostensibly simple choice of disbursing funding to purposes for which it
was intended such as purchasing a meal or a textbook can become a source of
a spending dilemma, as students make decisions based on emotional impulses,
rather than educational ones. Students from poor socio-economic
backgrounds, who currently account for the vast majority of funded students
in South Africa, are likely to experience challenges associated with money
management when they arrive at university. In their study on a group of South
African university students, Shambare and Rugimbana (2012, p.581) found



Mngomezulu, Dhunpath and Munro: Does financial assistance . . .       141

“moderate levels of financial illiteracy.” The level of financial literacy is a
function of both disadvantaged schooling backgrounds which do not privilege
money management skills as a life skill, as well as the absence of fiscal
cultural capital in low socioeconomic status households, which renders money
management superfluous as these households typically have little to manage.

Whilst students’ academic success can be undermined on different fronts
(Mushtag, 2012), findings from this study suggest another layer of challenge,
related to the influence of funding which impact their experiences and serve
as barriers to academic success. It is evident that when faced with financial
illiteracy, students are vulnerable to a myriad of competing influences such as
heightened peer pressure and anxiety to construct a new self-identity on
campus which work in concert to expose students to the residual effects of
misuse and mishandling of funds. Similar studies amongst college students in
the USA reveal that low-income students were more likely to borrow and
accrue more debt than their middle/upper-income peers (see Soria et.al.,
2014). In this context, while Bourdieu’s cultural capital framework is a
powerful tool in explaining spending behaviours in households with surplus
income, the framework has limited explanatory power in explaining student
behaviours and student outcomes particularly when family needs compete
with individual desires as students pursue tertiary qualifications. While social
and cultural capital provide a useful lens in understanding choice, we have an
obligation to draw on more nuanced models that draw on multiple theoretical
perspectives relevant to the context of higher education, where students from
lower/working-classes encounter challenges in the middle-class habitus of
higher education (Soria et.al., 2014)

The implications of competing interests are that even if students do have the
cultural capital to succeed in higher education, by virtue of their academic
attributes and aspirations to interrupt the cycle of inter-generational mobility,
their perceived sense of responsibility, obligation and commitment to
supporting families, conspire to divert attention and funds to securing the
means of survival for their families. In diverting funding to family, some
students inadvertently predispose themselves to academic risk, as study
resources are eroded, and with it, follows the erosion of objectified cultural
capital. Universities, thus, which are institutionalised forms which
credentialise and cultivate cultural competence, have in the South African
context, been co-opted to become agencies for alleviating family poverty, and
by implication, become sites of social stratification. 



142        Journal of Education, No. 68, 2017

Financial in(dependence) and decisional power

Higher education funding is allocated to qualifying students on the
presumption that all students have the same skills and level of maturity in
money management. However, the reality of the South African context is that
students receive funding based on their satisfactory academic performance as
they exit secondary schooling. There are no preconditions linked to students’
money management skills. Additionally, schools, particularly those located in
low socio economic contexts, rarely provide training and/or orientation in
how to manage funds appropriately. Swart (2005) posits that the inclusion of
financial literacy and management components in the higher education
curriculum should be compulsory for all students. However, the critical
question relates to when this competence should be acquired. Upon first entry,
students not only experience the challenges of transitioning from school to
campus life, and from dependency on family authority to independence and
self-regulation with decisional power. Students’ new found independence
includes the power to manage money and make concomitant choices
independently. Faced with the novel experience of having a bank account and
handling money for the first time, students should be exposed to financial
literacy programs to cultivate awareness of money management skills and
allied decision-making skills. Absence of these fundamental skills, generate
unintended consequences including the lack of capacity to prioritise needs
and make prudent choices.

As the findings in this study reveal, students’ ability to make judicious
decisions points to a critical disconnect between the structural arrangements
at universities which require particular forms of cultural capital to navigate an
unfamiliar field, and students’ inclination to make choices which actually
compromise their capacity to succeed. First entry students receive funding at a
vulnerable stage in their lives (in terms of social, emotional and cognitive
development). This is a stage when there is peer pressure to conform, to be
acknowledged by peers and the pervasive pressure to engage in new modes of
entertainment afforded by campus life. Their priorities change in response to
the affirmation they receive from their peers on the one hand, and the sense of
obligation they feel for their families on the other.

Faced with these choices, some students consider supporting their families as
a priority, which in turn finds expression in the choices they make in how
much to appropriate for sustenance and support in pursuit of their
qualifications. These choices are influenced by the intermeshed experiences



Mngomezulu, Dhunpath and Munro: Does financial assistance . . .       143

of deprivation, poverty, effects of unemployment, and poor socio-economic
status which defines and shapes reality for the student and his/her family.
Bronfenbrenner (1995) supports the contention that in attempting to
understand student behaviours, we should be cognisant of the interrelatedness
of factors affecting the individual such as family, peer, the community and
broader societal ecosystem. The burden of having to shoulder such complex
layers of challenge in their new found positions of independence with
disposable income, leads to a psychological burden which in turn impacts
negatively on academic performance. Pressure to construct new identities and
the expectation that students should have skills in making independent
judgements requires support from appropriately skilled mentors, the absence
of which can result in students engaging in potentially risky behaviour. The
potential for risk can be mitigated by the condition that funding should be
accompanied by curriculum interventions and mentorship programmes that
cultivate financial literacy.

Making financial accountability transparent 

Once students receive financial assistance, the choices they make are often
hidden from view, until these choices reveal themselves in the unintended
consequences that predispose them to risk. It is therefore crucial that higher
education institutions acknowledge financial literacy as a necessary life skill,
the absence of which could undermine student progression and success. 
“Higher education has a remarkable capacity to insulate itself from change, as
is evident in the mismatch between the prevailing inherited qualification
frameworks and the needs and capacities of the student body” (Dhunpath and
Vithal, 2012, p.13). It is vital for institutions to elevate financial literacy to a
curriculum concern. Opportunities exist for the prevailing curriculum to be
configured to provide financial skills. These include short courses, online
portals and counselling centres. For students who receive financial assistance,
institutions could develop monitoring mechanisms to identify students who
are potentially at risk and institute rehabilitation strategies. “When financial
literacy is embedded in the campus culture, students know how to access
institutional support and resources that support their personal development”
(Soria et.al., 2014). 



144        Journal of Education, No. 68, 2017

Concluding comments

The quest to increase and expand access to higher education as a global
phenomenon has produced interesting but varied results in different contexts.
One feature that is perhaps common across contexts in the global higher
education landscape is the impact of increased access on the fiscus. Whereas
the implications of such impact are studied at a macro level, its effects at a
micro level and the ripple effects it produces on the students and their
families, particularly seen through the students’ own experiences, are less
well documented. Increased access to higher education has resulted in
universities opening their doors to diverse groups of non-traditional students,
who come from differing socio economic backgrounds. Bourdieu (2011)
recognises the difference in structural conditions impacting students who
enter higher institutions with varying levels of cultural capital. Associating
the phenomenon of students’ poor progression in university to an
understanding of their inability to successfully navigate unfamiliar and
sometimes hostile environments and structures of the university system can
provide insights into the kinds of alienation students experience when faced
with dilemmas on how to appropriate funding in the context of competing
demands. 

A clear message from this study is that a focus on both academic and non-
academic support mechanisms are needed to bridge the transitional gap
between secondary school and university. This indicates the need for
cultivating competencies in attaining pedagogic access but equally
importantly, providing empowering literacies and life skills for psycho-social-
economic survival at university. This has key policy implications for higher
education curriculum planning, and the need for an expanded conception of
academic support which includes financial planning. Currently in South
Africa, the focus in higher education institutions is on curriculum content.
How students negotiate alienating dilemmas of being socialised into
university environments needs to be opened up for more rigorous enquiry.  

The authors submit that the phenomenon of misappropriation of student
funding to ameliorate conditions of family poverty is not intended to negate
the related problem of the culture of entitlement displayed by some students,
nor their predisposition to use student funding to satiate their desire for
largess. While these may be real or perceived challenges, the data generated
in the study portrays the sampled students as being conflicted in using their
student funding for the purposes intended. This suggests that providing



Mngomezulu, Dhunpath and Munro: Does financial assistance . . .       145

financial assistance solves some problems but creates others. This emphasises
the need for higher education institutions to research and design interventions
to curb financial illiteracy among their students. 

While universities cannot and should not be agencies to alleviate poverty,
university officials and funders have an obligation to acquire cultural
competence that helps both to navigate the contested terrain of student
funding in conditions of relative deprivation.

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Blanden, J. & Macmillan, L. (2014). Education and intergenerational
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Samukelisiwe Mngomezulu
School of Education
University of KwaZulu-Natal

Rubby Dhunpath 
Teaching and Learning Office
University of KwaZulu-Natal

Nicholas Munro
School of Applied Human Sciences
University of KwaZulu-Natal

mngomezulus1@ukzn.ac.za
dhunpath@ukzn.ac.za
munron@ukzn.ac.za

mailto:mngomezulus1@ukzn.ac.za
mailto:dhunpath@ukzn.ac.za
mailto:munron@ukzn.ac.za