Undoubtedly, the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) plays an integral role in funding students at the institutions of higher learning in South Africa. Many students from the marginalised communities of South Africa who enrol at local public universities and public Technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) colleges benefit from this funding. Notwithstanding, institutions of higher learning have been undergoing several predicaments, which has resulted in the plummeting of funding to students of both public universities and public TVET colleges, and this has aggrevated student protests. This paper seeks to explore and discuss the funding opportunities and challenges at the South African Institutions of Higher Learning, in order to stimulate debate in addressing the funding opportunities and challenges confronting these institutions. To positively problematise this argument, this paper has adopted traditional ethnogra