Students encouraged to explore alternatives to public universities

Managing Director at Rosebank College, Dr Linda Meyer has urged students to consider other options outside of public higher education institutions.

With the 2024 cohort of matriculants scoring the highest number of bachelor passes, most universities have already met their capacity intake for the academic year.

Meyer says the amount of learners who want to further their studies after passing matric is over 500 000 students.

“When we speak about the 337 000 students that have matriculated and that there are only 202 000 spaces we must remember these are bachelor’s passes, so it excludes also the diploma graduates and the higher certificate graduates that also need to enter higher education. And that means that the real demand is well over 500 000 for students at hat need to enter into higher education.”

2025 Academic Year | Influx of university applications: Dr. Linda Meyer:

Prospective students have been urged to be aware that both public and private higher education institutions have to go through the same process to have their qualifications accredited.

Meyer says although there is a stigma about not going to well-known universities, there are some good alternatives that are also more affordable than public higher education institutions.

Meyer elaborates, “Both public and private higher education institutions have to go through the same process to have their qualifications accredited. They have to have the same level of qualified staff that present these qualifications and although we’ve had some challenges in this sector, the private higher education sector provides a very good alternative. I think there’s also a misnomer that private high education is a lot more expensive like we see with schools, but in fact, there’s a range, a price range, which is often much more affordable than the public higher education institution.”