Unlocking Futures: helping UCT's graduates cross the finish line
The ultimate achievement: graduating after years of hard work
What does it mean to complete a degree but be unable to prove it?
For a growing number of University of Cape Town students, this is not a hypothetical question. Each year, a group of students ready themselves to graduate, having fulfilled every academic requirement, only to find that outstanding fees stand in the way of receiving their qualification.
Without this, they cannot apply for jobs, register for postgraduate study, or take the next step in the lives they have worked so hard to build. The Unlocking Futures Bursary exists to change that.
The last hurdle
UCT draws students from across South Africa, many of them the first in their families to attend university. Around 48% of first-year students come from households rated as highly disadvantaged, and nearly 38% depend on government bursary funding through NSFAS. For these students, higher education is frequently a complex financial journey, pieced together from multiple funding sources and navigated alongside family pressures, limited support networks, and the very real costs of living and studying far from home.
NSFAS and other bursary programmes cover the majority of costs for qualifying students, but they function as contractual arrangements — tied to academic progress within set timeframes. A single failed course can mean repeating an entire semester or year, incurring additional fees that fall outside the original funding agreement. Unexpected hardships — a parent's job loss, a family illness, an emergency — can place students in deficit at the very end of their studies.
The result is a painful irony: students who have already done everything asked of them, academically, are left unable to graduate because of a relatively small, unresolved financial shortfall. Across the 2025 cohort, UCT has identified 245 such students, with an average outstanding balance of approximately R108 000 per student.
These are not students who have failed. These are students who have succeeded — and who need one final act of support to claim what they have earned.
What the bursary does
A degree from UCT opens doors.
Unlike a traditional bursary, which supports a student across the duration of their degree, the Unlocking Futures Bursary is targeted and immediate. It clears the outstanding balance on a qualifying student's fee account, releases their academic certificate, and allows them to graduate.
The impact is swift and transformational. With a degree certificate in hand, a student can enter employment, earn an income, and begin contributing to their family and community. For many, that certificate is their single most important asset.
In 2025, UK-linked donor support through the Unlocking Futures programme helped 226 financially vulnerable students cross this final threshold — clearing their debt, releasing their qualifications, and allowing them to move forward into the next chapter of their lives.
In their words
Students who have received support through the Unlocking Futures Bursary are studying across disciplines — engineering, biochemistry, property studies, construction, geomatics — and they come from a wide range of backgrounds. What they share is an experience of perseverance, anxiety, and, ultimately, relief.
A recipient described living for years with the weight of outstanding debt while trying to remain focused on one of the most demanding degree programmes at the university: "You did not just help me financially. You gave me relief, renewed hope, and the chance to focus on my studies without constant fear and stress."
Another graduate spoke to the particular distress of completing all academic requirements while fearing that financial constraints would prevent participation in the graduation ceremony itself — a milestone that carries deep meaning for students and families alike: "Being unable to graduate due to financial constraints is incredibly discouraging. This support gave me the opportunity to celebrate our hard work and achievements."
For a first-generation university graduate, the bursary carried a significance that extended far beyond themselves: "Your generosity lifted a heavy weight from my shoulders and replaced it with joy and anticipation for the future."
Another recipient — academically high-performing, with plans for further study — reflected on what the support made possible beyond graduation day: "This support allows me to graduate and fully apply myself to making a difference, especially in the South African context."
Why your support matters
The Unlocking Futures Bursary offers something increasingly rare in philanthropy: the ability to see direct, tangible, and immediate impact.
A contribution does not disappear into a large institutional fund. It clears a named student's account. It releases a degree certificate. It enables a graduation.
For those giving from outside South Africa, the favourable exchange rate means that international contributions carry exceptional purchasing power — even a relatively modest gift can meet the full shortfall for a qualifying student, transforming years of academic work into a qualification that changes a life. For South African-based donors, the need is no less urgent: the gap between what students owe and what they can access remains one of the most solvable — and yet persistently unmet — challenges in our higher education system.
The Unlocking Futures Bursary continues to grow through the generosity of alumni and friends around the world who recognise the profound injustice of letting financial circumstance erase academic achievement.
A Direct Investment in Human Potential
As UCT Vice-Chancellor Professor Mosa Moshabela told graduates at the 2026 autumn graduation: "We set the bar high at UCT… Fear not, pursue your passion, trust yourself and your journey and hold onto the values of excellence, kindness, compassion and humility."
The Unlocking Futures Bursary is, in essence, a commitment to ensuring that potential is never withheld for financial reasons. It is a recognition that the students who arrive at graduation having overcome the greatest obstacles are precisely the graduates who will go on to contribute most meaningfully to their professions, their communities, and their country.
Use the QR code below if you would like to support the Unlocking Futures Bursary or click here
