South Africa has developed a wonderfully inventive approach to higher education.
First, we encourage young people to work hard at school. We tell them that education is the route out of poverty, the engine of development, the foundation of democracy and possibly the answer to every national problem short of potholes.
Then, when they achieve a bachelor’s pass, we explain that there is no room for them at university.
In early 2025, more than 337,000 matriculants qualified for bachelor’s degree study. Public universities had space for just over 200,000 first-year students. This left more than 130,000 academically eligible young people in the unfortunate position of having passed the examination but failed the furniture test. They were qualified for higher education; higher education simply had no chairs available.
One might imagine that a system facing this kind of capacity crisis would welcome every accredited institution capable of educating students. One might even expect government to regard private higher education institutions as useful partners.
Instead, private higher education institutions are often treated as slightly disreputable commercial operations: academically suspect, morally ambiguous and probably hiding a profit motive somewhere behind the reception desk. The fact that they are accredited, registered and educating hundreds of thousands of students is regarded as an interesting administrative detail rather than evidence that they form part of the national system.
Between 2011 and 2021, enrolments in private higher education more than doubled, rising from about 103,000 to nearly 233,000 students. In 2023 private institutions accommodated roughly one sixth of South Africa’s higher education students. This is not an insignificant contribution. It is certainly more substantial than many government implementation plans.
Yet the sector remains caught in an ideological time warp in which “public” is assumed to mean socially virtuous and “private” is assumed to mean commercially predatory. This makes for comforting rhetoric, even if it bears only an occasional relationship to reality.
Public universities are, of course, committed to the public good. They are also committed to tuition fees, third-stream income, commercial partnerships, international rankings, intellectual property, executive remuneration, student debt collection and the strategic sale of branded sweatshirts.
Private institutions, meanwhile, are accused of marketisation because they charge fees.
The distinction is subtle.
Public universities charge fees while serving the public good. Private institutions charge fees while allegedly undermining it.
Perhaps the invoice template is different.
The conceptual problem lies partly in the way higher education is classified. Economists distinguish between public and private goods. A public good is non-rival and non-excludable. National defence is the familiar example: one citizen’s protection does not diminish another’s, and the army does not usually stop at individual houses to check whether the occupants have paid.
Higher education is more awkward.
A place in a lecture theatre is rivalrous. This becomes especially apparent when 500 students arrive for a venue designed for 300. Education is also excludable through admissions criteria, tuition fees and the increasingly sophisticated use of online portals that stop working precisely when applications close.
Higher education also provides private benefits. Graduates tend to have better employment prospects, higher earnings and greater social mobility. In theory, at least. In practice, many graduates receive a certificate, a LinkedIn account and several years of searching for an “entry-level” position requiring five years’ experience.
But higher education also creates benefits for society. Educated populations tend to enjoy better health, stronger democratic participation, lower crime, greater social trust and more productive economies. Universities produce teachers, nurses, engineers, researchers, managers and citizens capable of distinguishing evidence from something their cousin posted on Facebook.
Higher education is therefore a mixed good. It produces private benefits, public benefits and, increasingly, mixed feelings.
The more important concept is the common good. This asks not who owns an institution, but what the institution contributes to society. Does it educate students well? Does it widen access? Does it produce useful knowledge? Does it strengthen communities? Does it help young people build meaningful lives?
These questions are more useful than simply checking whether the word “public” appears in the institution’s title.
A badly managed public institution does not automatically serve the public good. A well-regulated private institution does not automatically undermine it. Public ownership is not a quality-assurance mechanism, just as private ownership is not evidence of moral collapse.
Private institutions are subject to formal accreditation and registration requirements. Their qualifications must meet national standards. They operate within the same qualifications framework as public universities, and their students may articulate into other parts of the system.
This does not mean that every private institution is excellent. Some will be mediocre. Some will be badly managed. Some may overpromise.
Fortunately, none of these problems has ever occurred in a public university.
The evidence also suggests that private institutions may offer students greater levels of individual support. The paper cites a staff-to-student ratio of about 1:27 in private institutions, compared with approximately 1:53 in public institutions.
A lower ratio does not guarantee educational quality, but it does improve the chance that a lecturer will notice when a student has disappeared. At some large public universities, students can attend for three years and remain a rumour.
The most obvious contradiction concerns funding.
Private institutions help relieve pressure on an overcrowded public system. They provide additional places, develop programmes in areas such as information technology, business, health and the creative industries, and respond relatively quickly to labour-market demand.
Yet students who attend them are excluded from the National Student Financial Aid Scheme.
The state’s position is therefore roughly as follows:
“We do not have a place for you in a public university. You may attend an accredited private institution. But if you do, the financial assistance available to you will disappear.”
This is less a funding policy than a practical joke with administrative consequences. The “missing middle” fares particularly badly. These are families who earn too much to qualify for NSFAS but too little to pay university fees without serious hardship. They are neither poor enough for support nor wealthy enough for comfort.
They are the policy equivalent of passengers standing between train carriages: officially on board, but advised not to move suddenly.
Government has announced loan schemes for these students. As with many South African policy announcements, the announcement itself was highly successful. The implementation has been rather more reserved.
If private higher education contributes to national capacity, employability and social mobility, then the case for supporting eligible students at accredited private institutions is strong. Funding should follow the student, within properly regulated limits, rather than vanish when the student crosses an invisible ideological border.
This does not mean writing blank cheques to private providers. Public support should come with clear conditions: transparent fees, quality teaching, student protection, bursary commitments, responsible governance and evidence that surpluses are reinvested in educational purposes.
The common good is not an excuse for private profit at public expense.
But neither should the phrase “public good” be used as a ceremonial shield behind which public institutions protect their funding monopoly.
The paper proposes greater collaboration between public and private institutions: shared infrastructure, joint programmes, research partnerships, regional consortia and coordinated planning. This seems sensible, which may explain why it has proved so difficult to achieve.
South Africa’s higher education system is currently divided into sectors that often duplicate resources, compete for students and speak about collaboration at conferences.
Ubuntu is offered as an ethical alternative. It emphasises interdependence, shared responsibility and collective wellbeing. Applied to higher education, it suggests that knowledge and education should be co-produced by institutions, communities, government and industry. Naturally, Ubuntu must be approached carefully. It is frequently invoked immediately before an organisation does something highly competitive.
Ubuntu cannot balance a budget, train lecturers or repair a residence. It is not a technical funding mechanism. But it does challenge the idea that public and private institutions must behave like rival football clubs while the national system runs out of seats.
South Africa cannot reach its higher education targets through public universities alone. The numbers make that clear. The state cannot simultaneously rely on private institutions to absorb excess demand and pretend that they are external to the public mission.
The real choice is not between public and private higher education.
It is between a coordinated system that uses all its available capacity and a fragmented system that continues excluding qualified students while debating the ideological character of the empty chair.
The common good should be judged by what institutions contribute, not by what is written on the sign outside.
And if an accredited private institution educates students, produces graduates, supports employment and expands access, then perhaps it is already doing public work. It is just doing so without the subsidy, the prestige or the comforting adjective.