{"id":282431,"date":"2019-01-04T14:54:46","date_gmt":"2019-01-04T12:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=282431"},"modified":"2019-01-04T14:54:46","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T12:54:46","slug":"what-students-should-study-to-make-the-most-money-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/282431\/what-students-should-study-to-make-the-most-money-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"What students should study to make the most money in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

As part of a recent parliamentary\u00a0Q&A session, the Department of Higher Education has released\u00a0<\/a><\/strong>enrolment statistics based on numbers at South Africa’s higher education institutes.<\/p>\n

The data shows that there has been a steady uptick in the number of enrolled students at South Africa’s universities, with the total number of enrolled students rising from just below 800,000 in 2008 to over a million in 2018.<\/p>\n

Community Education and Training (CET) colleges and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) colleges have also seen strong enrolment growth since their establishment in 2015 and 2010 respectively.<\/p>\n

According to an August 2017 report<\/a> <\/strong>by the IRR,\u00a0South Africa\u2019s absorption rate \u2013 the proportion of people of working age who are employed \u2013 depends largely on a person\u2019s level of education.<\/p>\n

For example, the absorption rate for people with a\u00a0tertiary education is 75.6%<\/strong>, while people with a matric as their highest level of education, have an absorption rate of 50.3%.<\/p>\n

You can find the complete university enrolment statistics detailed below.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Year<\/th>\nCET Colleges<\/th>\nTVET Colleges<\/th>\nUniversities<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
2008<\/td>\n*<\/td>\n**<\/td>\n799 490<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2009<\/td>\n*<\/td>\n**<\/td>\n837 776<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2010<\/td>\n*<\/td>\n358 393<\/td>\n892 936<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2011<\/td>\n*<\/td>\n400 273<\/td>\n938 201<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2012<\/td>\n*<\/td>\n657 690<\/td>\n953 373<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2013<\/td>\n*<\/td>\n639 618<\/td>\n983 698<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2014<\/td>\n*<\/td>\n702 383<\/td>\n969 154<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2015<\/td>\n283 602<\/td>\n737 880<\/td>\n985 212<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2016<\/td>\n273 431<\/td>\n705 397<\/td>\n975 837<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2017<\/td>\n262 156<\/td>\nN\/A<\/td>\n1 036\u00a0984 ***<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

* The enrolment data for CET colleges is provided from the 2015 academic year onwards as CET colleges were only established in 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n

** Enrolment data prior to 2010 resides with the Department of Education.<\/em><\/p>\n

*** Provisional data<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

What South Africans are studying<\/strong><\/p>\n

According to the latest enrollment<\/a> <\/strong>data provided by Stats SA (2017),\u00a02.1 million adults aged 20 years and older have\u00a0attained<\/a> <\/strong>a tertiary qualification at a South African university.<\/p>\n

The largest number of these –\u00a0503,096 graduates – studied Education.<\/p>\n

This is followed by Business and Economics (439,719 graduates), Health (221,121) and Engineering (219,007).<\/p>\n

Interestingly Stats SA found that\u00a0166,224 (close to 8%) of South Africa\u2019s university graduates\u00a0are aged 20\u201324\u00a0\u2013 whereas the majority\u00a0(close to 52%) are between 25 and 44 years old.<\/p>\n

This is due to either the slow progress of students in the higher education system or the late entry of students in the higher education system, the\u00a0report noted.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

What to study<\/strong><\/p>\n

BusinessTech recently looked at the best degrees to study to make the most money in South Africa.<\/p>\n

The data which is based on information, provided by jobs website CareerJunction, found that engineers remain some of the highest earners in the country, with environmental engineers taking home an average monthly salary of around R75,941 (R911,292 per year).<\/p>\n

Senior managers across a variety of sectors also earn well, with senior financial managers taking home an average salary of R67,653 a month (R811,836 a year), and senior IT managers taking home an average salary of R68,281 (R819,372 a year).<\/p>\n

Aside from engineers, other top-paying positions are commonly found in finance and ICT sectors, as well as within the medical field.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Job<\/th>\nDegree<\/th>\nAverage monthly salary<\/th>\nAverage annual salary<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Environmental engineer<\/td>\nFour-year Bachelor of Science (BSc) with Honours in Environmental Engineering<\/td>\n\u00a0R75 941<\/td>\n\u00a0R911 292<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Civil engineer<\/td>\nFour-year Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Civil Engineering<\/td>\n\u00a0R74 779<\/td>\n\u00a0R897 348<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Structural engineer<\/td>\nFour-year Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Civil Engineering<\/td>\nR71 377<\/td>\n\u00a0R856 524<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
IT management<\/td>\nBCom\/BCom Hons in Information Management<\/td>\n\u00a0R68 281<\/td>\n\u00a0R819 372<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Financial management<\/td>\nBCom in Financial Management<\/td>\n\u00a0R67 653<\/td>\n\u00a0R811 836<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Plant manager<\/td>\nBachelor’s degree in business or industrial management is advised<\/td>\n\u00a0R62 188<\/td>\n\u00a0R746 256<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chartered accountant<\/td>\nBCom, followed by a certificate in the theory of accounting (CTA).<\/td>\n\u00a0R60 795<\/td>\n\u00a0R729 540<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Quantity surveying<\/td>\nFour-year Bachelor of Science (BSc) with honours in Quantity Surveying<\/td>\nR60 227<\/td>\n\u00a0R720 454<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Electrical engineer<\/td>\nFour-year Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Electrical Engineering<\/td>\n\u00a0R59 792<\/td>\n\u00a0R717 504<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Technical and business architect<\/td>\nA\u00a0BSc in IT or Computer Science is advised<\/span><\/td>\n\u00a0R58 981<\/td>\n\u00a0R707 772<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Read: These are the most popular degrees to study \u2013 in South Africa\u2019s prisons<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s how many South Africans enrolled for university in the last 10 years – and the degrees to study to make the most money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":101682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-282431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282431"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":292294,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282431\/revisions\/292294"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/101682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}