So, you've got your matriculation certificate in hand, your hopes set high and you're standing on the threshold of ‘what next?'. Now is the time to decide what you are going to study, where you are going to study and how you are going to do it.
There's no doubt that tertiary education is a costly business - you can expect to pay between R15, 000 and R25,000 per year for most undergraduate degrees and even more for specialised or professional degrees such as law and medicine.
Your first port of call should be to suss out the available bursaries. Bursaries are available to students with a good academic record or in need of financial assistance, or both. They can be sourced through major companies, tertiary institutions, or academic foundations. Many mining and engineering companies, for example, offer ‘contract' bursaries to dedicated students, and each company has it's own terms and conditions. These bursaries are provided on the condition that you ‘pay back' the bursary by working at the company after your studies are complete. This is a good option, as you land a job and work experience immediately upon graduating.
The first thing to do is to check out the Bursary Register, which is usually available at high schools and through the financial aid offices of universities, and will provide you with a full list of bursaries available in your chosen field of study.
Even easier than that - log on to the ‘Get-a-Life' website on www.gal.co.za, which is South Africa's largest single open database of bursaries to SA students - for both local and international study. Their listings are comprehensive and you can click straight through to specific websites and application forms.
Another very helpful site for bursary listings is www.mycareer.co.za, which also list bursaries by field of study to minimise your search time.
And lastly, try www.firststep.co.za, for good advice and some comprehensive listings.
So, you've sent out your bursary applications and - lo and behold - you have a bite! After you have whooped for joy, jumped up and down and celebrated wildly, it's time to come back down to earth and face the finance facts. You have to learn fast to manage your hard won money and make it go as far as it possibly can. With our current crazy economy the humble rand is not stretching as far as it used to and the last thing you want is your money squandered by bad management.
When you get your bursary, some do include money for textbooks, accommodation, food etc. To manage these funds effectively you can use a financial tool such as Edu-Loan's Edu-Extras card. This card is a bursary management tool specifically for students and designed like a debit card. The card has within it five ‘pockets' - for tuition, accommodation, textbooks, food and cash, and can be used at a specified range of suppliers/outlets like 7-11 and affiliated book stores which are specifically set up to accept them.
This makes managing your funds so much easier, as instead of spending your textbook money on food and pitching up for class with a full lunch-box but no books, you can use your funds for their exact purpose! For further information on the Edu-Extras card or obtaining any kind of study loan through Edu-Loan, visit www.eduloan.co.za or call their Client Services call-centre on: 0860-55-55-44.
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