EDUCATION FUNDING
EXCLUSIVE: Income-contingent loans are not enough to solve fees problem, says Michael Sachs
Income-contingent loans for students are unlikely to solve the problem of university fees on their own, says former top Treasury man Michael Sachs. Sachs, who resigned as head of the budget office at the Treasury, spoke to Business Day on the sidelines of an inclusive growth summit in Cape Town after the release of the Heher commission report on higher education. Sachs said the proposed introduction of an income-contingent loan was understandable when the historical debt of graduates, graduate unemployment and "black tax" were taken into consideration. "It is one way to resolve the problem when you have graduates enter a certain pay threshold and an amount appears on their pay slip as a deduction, so it is not like a debt. You can extract billions out of that, but it is clear that you will need more to address the entire problem," said Sachs.The Gauteng government announced at the weekend that Sachs would be joining premier David Makhura’s administration as deputy director-general r...
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