There is a world-wide trend to expect individuals to pay more of the cost of their higher education. This is also the case in South Africa since public funding of higher education decreased from 0.86% of GDP in 1986 to only 0.68% in 2005. Higher education institutions were forced to increase tuition fees to compensate for this "loss" of income. As a result of these high fees student debt increased and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme (NSFAS) was introduced by the government to alleviate this. There were significant differences in the contribution of different sources of income, in the level of expenditure per student and in the size of outstanding student debt during the study period (1986-2003) between historically advantaged and disadvantaged universities and technikons.