If government’s baseline allocation to universities did not increase, the number of university admissions would have to be reduced, the department of higher education and training (DHET) said on Wednesday.

“The baseline for university funding must be increased by a minimum of R2.4-billion in 2017 in order to offset the zero percent increase in 2016,” said department director-general Gwebinkundla Qonde.

Qonde, along with the Minister for Higher Education and Training Blade Nzimande and his ministry, were briefing Parliament’s standing and select committees on appropriations as well as the portfolio committee on higher education on the funding implications of the zero percent university fee increase for 2016.

The minimum of R2.4-billion was needed to “maintain the current student population and programmes offered by institutions”.

“If funding for the baseline does not materialise, then growth of the system must be reduced,” said Qonde, “With dire consequences, particularly given the growing number of youth from basic education able to meet university entrance requirements.”

Qonde and Nzimande said that funding free tertiary education in 2016 and beyond presented government and the nation at large with numerous problems, but it was one the DHET was committed to seeing through.

“We are committed to finding that money,” said Nzimande.

The zero percent fee increase would create a R2.3-billion shortfall for the country’s universities.

Nzimande said wealthier universities, presumably such as the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), had offered to pay the shortfall for the first four months of 2016. Thereafter, it was agreed that funding the shortfall would be shared between government and universities.

Government was yet to announce where it would find the money to fund the shortfall.

Meanwhile, Democratic Alliance MP Belinda Bozzoli said the entire funding model of universities was a failure. “Something more fundamental needs to be done,” she said.

She added that the DHET had been “left to its own devices and has been neglected by government”.

The Economic Freedom Fighters’ Moses Mbatha said that government and the DHET were simply reactionary.

“The majority have been protesting for years and nobody ever listens to them. Maybe the problem is that when a poor black child speaks no one cares but when the likes of UCT and Wits cries, you listen.”