Our Impact
One student fully funded through university, ninety-nine places still open, and every number on this page reported exactly as it stands. Here is where the journey is.
Where We Stand Today
We report one thing above all others: how many students we fund completely, through to the qualification. It is a slow number on purpose.
What "fully funded" means here. It is not a contribution toward a student's costs. It is 100% of one person's qualification carried by We Aspire through to completion — registration and tuition, textbooks, a laptop and data, transport and a monthly stipend. Our first fully funded student is at university on exactly that package. One hundred of these by 2030 is the entire organisation, which is why this number moves slowly and why we only move it when it is genuinely true.
Why Your Support Matters
A place at a university, a university of technology or a TVET college is won on results. Keeping it is won on money. Every year, South Africans who earned their place give it up over a registration fee, a laptop they cannot buy, or a taxi fare that runs out in week six.
Your donation covers those exact costs, paid directly to the institution or the supplier rather than through anyone's hands. Registration and tuition shortfalls, a device and the data to use it, transport and meals, and the uniform or kit a work placement formally requires.
And for students who have finished but cannot collect the certificate, settling the balance is often the single cheapest intervention there is — it turns a completed qualification into a job application.
Fund a StudentSeeing the Hope You Create
Stories shared with permission. We do not publish a student's photograph or name unless they have specifically consented to it, which is why this page carries fewer faces than most.
Tlhalefo is at university with her tuition fees, textbooks, laptop and a monthly stipend all carried by We Aspire — so she can put her energy into her degree instead of into finding a way to pay for it.
Ninety-nine places on The We Aspire 100 are still open. Fund one, and the next name on this page is the student you decided to back.
Fund Student 02How We Report
Four rules we hold ourselves to. They are the reason our headline number is small.
We only count a student once they are actually funded
The funded count on this site moves when money has been paid and a student is enrolled. Not when a pledge is made, not when a campaign launches, and not when a partner expresses interest.
Every statistic we publish names its source
Each figure on this site links to Stats SA, Parliament, NSFAS or the department that published it. If you find one that is wrong, tell us and we will correct it and date the correction.
We drop numbers we cannot verify
Widely repeated statistics about dropout rates are circulating that would help us raise money. We traced them to a private company's own research rather than official data, so we do not use them. See what we left out →
We pay institutions and suppliers, not cash
Registration fees and tuition go directly to the university or college. Devices, transport and kit are bought and delivered. There is a receipt behind every rand, and we would rather be slow than loose with it.
We are a young organisation and this page is deliberately short. It will get longer the honest way.
From 1 to 100
One student's qualification is funded in full. Our goal is one hundred of them by 2030 — and each gold circle is a real person whose entire post-school education is paid for.
We don’t just put people through university; we put dreams into motion.
We AspireThe distance between who you are and who you want to be is called Aspiration.
We AspireEducation is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.
Nelson MandelaHelp Us Get to Two
One hundred by 2030 starts with the second student. Every number on this page began with one person deciding to give.