🎓 When it Pays to Skip School…
Hi there,
Dolls or nukes? Whether you have Barbenheimer fever (Warner Bros’s Barbie and Universal Pictures’ Oppenheimer launched the same day this weekend) or not, this outrageous viral AI-created Barbeheimer movie mashup trailer’s quite impressive – considering it took only 4 days to make.
In this Open Letter:
- Quality tests: Are our universities delivering value?
- Adios Twitter, hiding from your boss & diesel for your takeaways.
- Low-code heaven: 5 Super savvy MVP tool options.
- Poll results: How we choose a holiday.
- Startup ideas: Refer a friend for top opportunity picks.
TRENDING NOW
When it Actually Pays to Skip School
Not all qualifications are equally valuable. That’s what drove the UK government last week to force “rip-off” degrees with high drop-out rates and poor employment prospects to drop fees by 37% from £9’250 (R220k) to £5’760 (R137k) per year.
Why? The UK's higher education regulator, The Office for Students, says that some 30% of students aren't getting skilled jobs, 15 months after graduating. In fact, says respected think-tank, The Institute for Fiscal Studies, 1 in 50 graduates might have been financially better off if they'd skipped university altogether.
All is not well back home
University education in South Africa is comparatively less expensive than in the UK, but with a starting tuition average of around R55,900 per year, adding textbook costs, accommodation, and living expenses, you're suddenly in for over R100’000 a year.
Now, the National Student Financial Aid System NSFAS helps support about 700’000 students. But that’s only 64% of the 1 mil SA students that enrol per annum – and with the average SA salary at just R300’000 a year, heaven knows where hero parents source that extra R100k per child.
(And maybe that’s why only 6% of Saffas have a bachelor’s degree – much lower than countries with similar GDPs.)
What’s more, at that price, the education had better be super high quality. And we’re not sure it is, because recent data shows that graduate unemployment is worse than it was a decade ago.
So, what are our universities doing? Well, it all lies in how they’re funded…
How SA Universities stay afloat
To remain viable, universities are essentially juggling three main objectives:
- Fulfilling government requirements to ensure they continue to receive grants.
- Attracting enough students who can pay tuition (although 60–70% of these fees are covered by NSFAS, which ties back to point 1 above).
- Keeping residences full, and thus collecting those associated fees.
That forces our Unis to invest way more into government compliance and real estate management than actual education – let alone measuring the actual impact of the courses they offer. There are, after all, few real consequences for failing to deliver on student outcomes. (But with 50-60% of first-year students dropping out, that’s a lot of wasted money.)
All of this calls into question whether we put enough care into ensuring we provide a good enough education to actually benefit the country/economy. Just like in the UK.
Education that actually delivers
Interestingly, the grants-based funding model created a niche for private education institutions – catering to those who can afford tuition but don't meet the quota needs (that secure public grants).
Private schools jumped into this space, aligning their course offerings much more closely with student outcomes. And, over time, they’re likely to enhance their reputation and attract even higher-quality students.
Take, for instance, Stadio, a publicly listed entity with tuition fees on par with public universities. With a student body of roughly 40k, it's larger than UFS but just smaller than UJ. They are growing at roughly 8% per year and the business is cash generative with R148m cash on hand end of last year. And with another contact-learning campus planned for Durbanville, growth is set to continue.
However, you don't need to be operating a Billion-Rand university group to find opportunities in the tertiary education space. For example:
- Learner Management Solutions – Private universities, operating on tighter budgets, often require more efficient systems. Software solutions can greatly enhance efficiency throughout the learning journey — building something that can help the tertiary education process and Stadio might be a great customer.
- Graduate Recruitment and Placement – Private institutions have a vested interest in their graduates securing good jobs. By partnering with startups like Johburg-based Jobox, they can increase their effectiveness in this area.
- Using AI and machine learning to better qualify applicants and thus improve outcomes by reducing dropout rates.
- Alternative Education Formats – The traditional 3–4 year degree may be giving way to more flexible learning formats. The success of platforms like Coursera and Udemy suggests demand for short-form courses and the rise of EdTech overall. Locally, GetSmarter’s massive exit selling to 2U also points to the potential in this space.
The thing is, the UK is jumping in to address the situation. But locally, it might take some time. So there’s lots of money to be made for private players in this space.
Refer one friend to sign up to The Open Letter and view our top opportunity pick for this trend (and all future trends we cover).
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OVER TO YOU
Are tertiary qualifications worth the paper they are printed on?
Vote to see how others voted.
- 🤓 Yes learnt a lot and have used it at work.
- 💼 Yes it’s an important part of developing work ethic.
- 🥳 No but it was worth it for the party.
- 🏎️ No I’m doing something completely different to what I studied.
- ⏳ No it’s a waste of time.
Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.
IN SHORT
📈 Early retirement. Remember when we said it’s time we let robots do all the work? Well, it’s happening: Sam Altman’s global currency-enabling Worldcoin launched yesterday.
✖️ X gon' give it to ya. Elon Musk has officially changed the name of Twitter to X – one step closer to his “Everything Super App”. And if you’re wondering what to call it or what to say you’re doing on the app, might we suggest taking a lesson from Xhosa-speaking South Africans and say you’re Xweeting…
🤒 Pulling a sickie. Everyone knows you shouldn’t lie about being sick to take time off from work. But what you REALLY shouldn’t do is send your boss a text saying you’re sick, take time off, attend (and be filmed at) an EFF march at a Clicks store and be seen by the same boss on TV and YouTube.
🍔 Chowing diesel. Famous Brands forked over R8.8 million for diesel to power their restaurants between March & June of this year. This after a massive 880% increase in diesel costs in Q1. But it’s not all bad news for the company that owns Steers, Wimpy, Mugg & Bean, and Debonairs. Between March and May, sales from their leading brands made up nearly a quarter of its revenue.
🤖 A bot for your droid. The long-awaited ChatGPT for Android is launching next week (the exact date is still TBC). This after OpenAI launched ChatGPT for iPhone & iPad in May. Users can preorder the app in Google’s Play Store to be installed once it’s available.
💰 Kasha investment. South African VC Firm Knife Capital led a $21m series B investment in female health-tech startup Kasha. With a unique focus on female menstrual and reproductive health, Kasha is set to use the funding to expand its offering beyond Rwanda, into, amongst others, South Africa.
BUILDER’S CORNER
5 Tool Options for Your MVP Build
So you have an idea, scope and a clear vision. Time for an MVP? The game is, as always, moving fast so you can gather feedback and stay ahead of the competition…
Remember, an MVP is not the final product. It’s meant to just be a fast way to get something of value in front of the right audience, so you can gather the feedback and data you need to iterate and build the real one.
We’ve said before it pays to build ugly and sometimes even build things that don’t scale, just so you can fine-tune value, user experience and run some rigorous, low-cost viability tests. So a few great tools can go a long way…
Consider these smart MVP tool options
- Adalo
Adalo is a no-code platform for MVP development with drag-and-drop, pre-built components, and templates. It handles data, offers real-time previews, and supports responsive design. Simplifies publishing and iterative updates, and provides basic app analytics for refining the MVP. Check it out.
- Retool
This low-code platform for MVPs comes with pre-built components, data integration, real-time previews, responsive design, simplified publishing, and iterative updates based on user feedback. Take a squiz.
- FlutterFlow
- Get efficient visual development, seamless Flutter integration for cross-platform apps, responsive design system, pre-built components, real-time collaboration, custom code support, third-party integrations, interactive previews, and database integration for fast and effective MVP creation. Sneak a peek.
- Airtable
Airtable's flexible data organization, user-friendly visual interface, real-time collaboration, integrations, version history, API access, automation, and mobile app, make it an ideal tool for efficiently building MVPs. Not to mention it can track and streamline a whole bunch of other business processes. Have a look.
- Webflow
Webflow's visual web design, responsive layouts, interactions, CMS, hosting, e-commerce support, custom code integration, and form handling make it an excellent choice for building diverse and visually appealing web-based MVPs efficiently. Flow this way.
Bonus: A super useful tool for building integrations and custom automation across all your tools, is Zapier. Want two separate tools to talk to each other? Just create a zap and presto! Check it out.
Know a hot new MVP tool? Hit reply and share so we can make it famous…
THE RESULTS
Last time, we asked you what your go-to holiday vibe is. And most of us in this community use Booking.com. Tied for second are LekkeSlaap and those of us who don’t even know what a “holiday” is. #startuplife
⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🛏️ Airbnb (4%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🏠 Booking.com (32%)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🇿🇦 LekkeSlaap (20%)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏖️ My own beach house (16%)
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🏕️ Tent/caravan (8%)
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🤷 What is this "holiday" thing you speak of? (20%)
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