If a couple, who are both on National Living Wage, are proudly seeing their first born off to college, with their joint household income over £45,000, their child’s maintenance loan dips to £7,532. If the household income goes just over £62,000, the loan is under £5,000, which doesn’t cover rent. Quickly, reasons for celebration can become ongoing worries over finances.
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Many students immediately knuckle down and get part-time jobs – existence is impossible without them. It is frequently an easy cliché of some commentators, many of whom wasted their way through university on either grants with no fees, or small loans, that today’s students are whiny snowflakes who don’t know they’re born, chiselling an existence out of hardworking folk.
In reality, we have a generation who were hammered by lost years through lockdown, who have had to work just to live as they study to try and get ready for a better tomorrow, who see spiralling housing costs and shrinking job prospects. They are a toughened generation. They’ll be able to work through hard times when they have the levers.
But that is if many of them, and those who come next, get a chance. Third level education is in a parlous state. The round of cuts hitting colleges across Britain shows no sign of abating. Over 40% of universities in England are in deficit. Last week, two universities – Kent and Greenwich – announced they would merge. They’re insisting it’s to make a “super-university”. It looks very much like a way to cut costs.
As everywhere else, another core, growing issue is housing. The commodification of student accommodation has led to a massive growth in purpose-built student halls, clearly a means for making money with a guaranteed high yield and fresh turnover, allowing for annual rent increases. Kerching!
When Big Issue Roadshow visited Cardiff earlier this summer, the increased number of these places, at the expense of other new builds that could benefit the local community, was a heated topic for debate. The skyline in Glasgow is changing, with the city centre new dominated by new build student blocks. How big can that bubble grow? How high will the rents go before they are way out of reach of all except the wealthiest. And what of the need for housing for non-students that this is eclipsing?
Obviously, a third level education is not the only way to for young people to prosper. But it is a vital part of the matrix if Britain is to create a high skilled workforce and a buoyant economy in years to come. At present, the route to this is less and less straightforward. There is no clear strategy from government. The institutions themselves, in many cases, seem focused on maintaining as high an income as they can rather than serving their students. It adds up to letting down future generations.
If you have that drive ahead of you, watch for the speed traps on the M6 around Penrith.
Paul McNamee is editor of the Big Issue. Read more of his columns here. Follow him on X.
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