Economics Bursaries in South Africa

There are very few bursaries in South Africa for economics alone. The field is funded by the institutions that employ economists, and most of those are public: the South African Reserve Bank, the national and provincial treasuries, the financial regulators and the state-owned investors.

Everywhere else, economics appears inside a commerce list alongside accounting, finance and business management, which means you compete against applicants from all of those fields for the same places.

South African Reserve Bank

The South African Reserve Bank funds students from disadvantaged backgrounds in the fields the central bank itself needs: economics, econometrics, statistics, mathematics, actuarial science and finance. It runs two separate schemes with two separate deadlines.

• The external undergraduate bursary for 2027 closes on 30 September 2026. Applications go by email or by post.
• The Master’s in Data Science and Machine Learning scholarship for 2027 closes on 31 October 2026, applied for online through the SARB bursary manager.

This is the single most relevant scheme for an economics student in the country, and the undergraduate one closes first.

Provincial treasury bursaries

Every provincial treasury employs economists and financial analysts, and several fund students from their own province to fill those posts. These are small schemes and they advertise locally, so check the province’s own site rather than waiting to see the advert elsewhere.

Treasury	Fields	Last confirmed closing
KwaZulu-Natal Provincial Treasury	Undergraduate study in fields related to the treasury’s work. Applicants with disabilities may apply in any related field	15 February 2026
Limpopo Provincial Treasury	Financial accounting, auditing, computer science and economics	11 January 2026
Western Cape Provincial Treasury	Auditing, data science and information systems alongside economics	Not published
Eastern Cape Provincial Treasury	Financial accounting and auditing, within a development programme	Not published

The provincial treasury schemes cluster in January and February, which is later than most bursaries. If you miss the October and November round, they are still worth applying to.

Bursaries for economics students

• The National Economic Education Trust has funded disadvantaged students since 1991. It had not published a 2027 date when we checked.
• The ABSIP and STANLIB bursary comes from the Association of Black Securities and Investment Professionals and funds investment management, business finance and economics. It advertises in December and closes in mid-January.
• The AEASA BD Nomvete Bursary Trust Fund funds postgraduate agricultural economics through the Agricultural Economics Association of South Africa.
• The Canon Collins Scholarship for Economic Justice was created to build a generation of economists working on economic justice. Its last confirmed round closed in August 2021 and the trust now shows it as closed.

Regulator and state investor bursaries

These institutions employ economists to regulate, tax and invest, and they fund students accordingly.

• The Public Investment Corporation manages government employee pension money and funds finance, economics and technology skills. Its last round closed at the end of October.
• The Financial Sector Conduct Authority is the market conduct regulator and runs a stream for students with disabilities alongside its general bursary.
• The Compensation Fund names economics with accounting, financial sciences and actuarial science. It runs a March cycle and closed on 31 March 2026.
• The South African Revenue Service funds accounting, information systems, actuarial science and the analytical disciplines behind tax administration.
• The Industrial Development Corporation funds economics within a wide science and commerce list, and limits its postgraduate funding to a short list that includes economics-adjacent fields.

Bank, insurer and asset manager bursaries

The private sector funds economics as one field on a commerce or quantitative list. The largest of these are:

Funder	Last confirmed closing
Capitec	12 August 2026
Nedbank	31 August 2026
Ninety One Changeblazer	31 August 2026
Investec	30 September 2026
Standard Bank	30 September 2026
Old Mutual Imfundo Trust	30 September 2026
PSG	20 December 2026
Oasis	20 December 2026
Allan Gray Orbis Fellowship	30 April 2026

Internships

The NEDLAC internship programme places graduates at the National Economic Development and Labour Council, where government, business, labour and community organisations negotiate economic policy. Its 2026 intake offered eight posts with an all-inclusive stipend of R120 000 a year. It is not a bursary, but for an economics graduate it is one of the few direct routes into policy work.

Qualifications funded

• BCom Economics and BCom Econometrics, the degrees the treasuries and the Reserve Bank name.
• BA Economics, funded on the humanities side of the general scholarships rather than the commerce side.
• Development economics and public finance, mostly postgraduate, funded by the state institutions.
• Agricultural economics, funded separately by AEASA, Agbiz and the commodity organisations. See our agriculture bursaries page.
• Statistics and mathematical economics, which the quantitative funders treat as part of the same stream.

When to apply

Period	Action
August	Capitec, Nedbank and Ninety One close.
30 September	The Reserve Bank undergraduate bursary, Investec, Standard Bank and Old Mutual Imfundo Trust close.
October – December	Apply to NSFAS. The Reserve Bank data science scholarship closes 31 October. The PIC has closed at the end of October. PSG and Oasis close 20 December. ABSIP advertises in December.
January – February	The provincial treasuries close, and ABSIP closes in mid-January. This is the second window most students miss.
March – April	The Compensation Fund closes 31 March. The Allan Gray Orbis Fellowship closed 30 April in its last round.

See also our commerce bursaries page, actuarial science bursaries, and accounting bursaries for the funders that appear on the same calls.