The Duality of Student Hustle: Enterprise, Survival and Meaningful Choice

Abstract

Student hustle presents a critical dilemma for South African higher education: while income-generating activities may expand students’ entrepreneurial capabilities and support their educational needs, the necessity to earn can also expose socio-economic inequalities that constrain meaningful academic participation. Drawing on scholarship concerning student hardship, informal livelihoods, time poverty and the Capability Approach, I argue that student hustle should be understood through both its developmental possibilities and the circumstances that make it necessary. Using institutional documents from the University of the Free State (UFS) and the University of Venda (UNIVEN), I examine how universities promote entrepreneurship while navigating their responsibilities for student welfare, academic participation and campus governance. UFS’s business incubator and student market, alongside UNIVEN’s rapid incubation centre, illustrate structured support; residence rules highlight equally legitimate responsibilities for shared spaces and safety. Rather than assuming unequal institutional treatment, I question whether existing support arrangements adequately accommodate students whose income-generating activities emerge outside formal entrepreneurship programmes. I argue that transformative governance requires balancing entrepreneurial opportunity, financial necessity and proportionate regulation without romanticising student hardship or compromising academic responsibilities. Ultimately, higher education transformation should be judged not merely by the enterprises universities recognise, but by whether students have meaningful opportunities to pursue livelihoods without sacrificing their education.