Shortage Of Spots At South Africa's Public Universities Leads To Crisis

They lined up well before dawn, some driving from the deep countryside with bags of fluffy blankets and neatly packed sandwiches, to wait for the gates to a new life to open. They hoped for a shot at a coveted spot at one of South Africa’s public universities, and with it a chance to escape the indignity of joblessness that afflicts more than a third of the nation. By morning, the line was more than a mile long. The stampede embodied the broad crisis in South Africa’s overstretched higher education system as it struggles to extend opportunities once reserved for whites to all South Africans. It is a problem of grade school mathematics: Too many students are seeking too few seats at the country’s public universities, which turn away more than half of their applicants, leaving few options for most high school graduates. Read more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/11/world/africa/stampede-highlights-crisis-at-south-african-universities.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2