African Affairs, 1–11 doi: 10.1093/afraf/adw072 © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society. All rights reserved BRIEFING QUESTIONING ‘FEES MUST FALL’ REBECCA HODES* In 2015, A CLUSTER OF NEW STUDENT ACTIVIST GROUPS emerged at South African universities. Their initial names differed across campuses, reflecting the institutional particularities of their concerns. While the language of tuition was the principal focus of advocacy groups at Stel- lenbosch and the University of Pretoria, catalysts for mobilization elsewhere included student housing shortages and the presence of colonial iconog- raphy. By late 2015, through campaigns to establish unity of purpose, stu- dent movements mobilized behind a common demand: free higher education. The name attributed to the movement, “Fees Must Fall”, cap- tured this commitment. For the first time in the post-apartheid era, stu- dents marched on campuses, to Parliament, and to the seat of government in Pretoria, to protest against the rising cost of university fees. Between 1994 and 2011, the number of students enrolled in higher education in South Africa almost doubled, increasing from 495,356 to 938,201. 1 However, state funding for higher education as a component of total university income decreased from 49 percent in 2000 to 40 percent in 2012. 2 Universities sought to make up the budget shortfall through pri- vate fundraising, but during this time the contribution of student fees to total university income increased from 24 percent to 31 percent. In the third decade of South African democracy and under a constitutional order that guaranteed the right ‘to further education, which the state through *Rebecca Hodes (rebecca.hodes@gmail.com) is the Director of the AIDS and Society Research Unit at the University of Cape Town and an Associate Fellow at the Department of Social Policy and Investigation, Oxford University. This briefing is inspired by the recollection of a research group convened at the Universities of Oxford and the Witwatersrand between 2005 and 2006, and published in the edited volume: William Beinart and Marcelle Dawson (eds), Popular politics and resistance movements in South Africa (Wits University Press, Johannesburg, 2010). I thank Carl Death, William Beinart, Robert Morrell, Nicoli Nattrass, Lindsay Whitfield, and anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts of this briefing. For their careful reading and critique, I thank Esthie Hugo and Shirli Rabinowitz. 1. Report of the Ministerial Committee for the Review of the Funding of Universities, Department of Higher Education and Training, Pretoria, South Africa, February 2014, <http://www.dhet.gov.za/SiteAssets/Latest%20News/Report%20of%20the%20Ministerial% 20Committee%20for%20the%20Review%20of%20the%20Funding%20of%20Universities. pdf> (27 October 2016), p. 6. 2. Groundup, ‘Student fees: facts, figures and observations’, 22 October 2015, <http://www. fin24.com/Economy/Student-fees-facts-figures-and-observations-20151022> (27 October 2016). 1