UP student runs Comrades to help graduates escape student debt

And, ultimately, he will be running so that others do not have to face the same uncertainty.
Sithole, a final-year master’s student in Agricultural Plant Pathology in UP’s Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences, is one of nine fundraising champions taking on this year’s Comrades Marathon as part of UP’s Degrees Delivered campaign – an initiative aimed at helping graduates clear historical student debt and access the degree certificates they have already earned.

This Youth Month, Qiniso Sithole takes on the Comrades Marathon to help graduates break free from student debt and step into their future

Personal experience of outstanding fees

For Sithole, this campaign is not abstract. It is personal.

In a LinkedIn post earlier this year, he wrote candidly about the pressure of trying to register for his studies in 2026 while carrying outstanding fees and facing repeated funding rejections. “The stress of not being able to register piles up every day… the thought of having to leave this degree because I won’t be able to register is killing me,” he wrote.

At the time, he described the uncertainty of potentially losing access to his academic future despite having already completed most of his research work. Today, he is registered, in his final year, and deep into the write-up phase of his MSc – but the financial strain that defined much of his postgraduate journey has not disappeared from memory.

“It hasn’t been easy navigating a master’s without funding,” Sithole says. “Not being able to fund your studies is like not being able to fund your dreams. My supervisors at UP helped me settle the fees I needed to be able to register for my final year, and I am grateful to them and every person who shared my posts on social media. Having been on this journey, I now want to help other people facing similar challenges.”

From childhood athlete to Comrades runner

Born in Umgababa, near Umnini on KwaZulu-Natal’s south coast, Sithole’s relationship with running began long before postgraduate research, funding applications, or university corridors entered the picture.

As a child, he competed in short-distance track events – 200m, 400m and 800m races – before stepping away from athletics during high school as academic pressures increased.

The sport returned during his undergraduate studies between 2019 and 2023, when he experimented with multiple sporting codes before gravitating towards cross-country running, gradually moving into longer distances of 4km and 10km. “I just kept running and running,” he says. “It became something I did for myself.”

When he arrived at UP in 2024 to begin his master’s degree, something shifted again. Surrounded by fellow students casually running half-marathons and beyond, Sithole began to imagine that he too might one day take on the Comrades, the world’s oldest and largest ultramarathon. “I used to think those distances were crazy,” he recalls. “But being at UP changed my mindset. Slowly, I realised I could actually do it.”

Running to help others

As he approaches his first Comrades effort, Sithole says he was inspired to help as soon as he heard about UP’s Degrees Delivered campaign, with his personal experience of crippling student debt powering his commitment. “It taught me resilience, but also how fragile access to education can be when funding is uncertain,” he says.

The Degrees Delivered campaign aims to help UP graduates who have completed the hard work needed to earn their qualifications, but who are unable to access their degree certificates because of outstanding historical student debt. “This limits their employment opportunities, professional registration and further study options,” Sithole points out.

Unlike traditional fundraising campaigns aimed at future scholarships or infrastructure, Degrees Delivered seeks to resolve past financial barriers so graduates can move forward immediately.

For Sithole, the connection is direct. “This campaign is deeply personal because I know what it feels like to study under financial pressure,” he says. “If I can help even one graduate get their degree and move forward, then every kilometre is worth it.”

To support Sithole’s run, click here. To read about the other UP fundraising champions and back their runs, click here.