The University of Pretoria (Tuks), which is owed more than R200m by students, is flirting with sliding into deficit because of pressure arising from not making provision for "missing middle" students. The funding crisis and rising student debt have created a revenue headache for universities, which generate most of their income from students’ tuition fees. Tuks is the third major university to warn of a looming deficit after University of the Witwatersrand vice-chancellor Adam Habib told Business Day in January Wits would record its first deficit in about 11 years and the University of Cape Town said it would be headed in that direction in three years. Since the calls for free higher education started, the freeze on fee hikes in 2016 and universities foregoing registration fees for some students, higher education institutions have had to find alternative sources of funding to plug the gaps created by these multiple concessions. In the 2015 financial year the University of Pretoria r...
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