By Joe Rukin
White Paper Summary.
Access to loans, the new grant and fee levels will still depend on a students' parents income. Under the new proposals, if your parents earn £10k or below you will get the full grant of £1k per year. This will go down on a sliding scale to nothing when your parents earn £20k. Universities will be allowed to charge upto £3,000 per year in fees, to be payable before or after your course. The same means testing on tuition fees will still be in place as is now, meaning if parental income is less than £20k, the first £1,100 per year of tuition fees will be paid by the government, which will go down on a sliding scale to nothing to nothing once parental income hits just above £30k. This will bring about an increase of debt where full fees are charged of £5,700 to £9,000 (as the student will be asked to pay fees, not the parent). Repayments will be administered through Inland Revenue as loans are now, with the threshold for repayment starting when a graduate earns £15,000.
The table below represents the change in debts under the new system. Although the DfES claim in their case studies that a student receiving a 'full grant' will not need to take out the full loan due to this extra support, the maximum available to them with grant and loan will be £4905 (years 1 & 2) or £4390 (year 3), and it is highly unlikely any student from a family which qualifies for a full grant will not still need the full loan. As such the grant has not been deducted from the total debt level. A £1,000 grant would not cover two terms worth of rent at most institutions. As most universities are currently planning to charge the full £3k/year fee, fees have been taken at that level. The total loan is not planned to change yet (though there will be a review), with £11,200 representing a maximum £3905 (years 1&2) £3390 (year 3). Reports of £21,000 in goevernment related debt are slightly over the mark as they have not considered that the year three loan is smaller. Richer students will continue to qualify for 75% of a full loan. All fees will be adjusted for inflation in the future. Up to now that has meant a £25 increase in the maximum fee per year. Debts will be liable for 'inflation rate' interest charges.
| | NOW | | | | FUTURE | | |
| parental income (p.i.) | loans | fees | total | loans | fees | total debt | grant | debt as % of p.i. |
| £10,000 | 11200 | 0 | 11200 | 11200 | 5700 | 16900 | 3000 | 169% |
| £15,000 | 11200 | 0 | 11200 | 11200 | 5700 | 16900 | 1500 | 113% |
| £20,000 | 11200 | 0 | 11200 | 11200 | 5700 | 16900 | 0 | 85% |
| £25,000 | 11200 | 1620* | 12800 | 11200 | 7380* | 18580 | 0 | 74% |
| £32,000 | 11200 | 3300 | 14500 | 11200 | 9000 | 20200 | 0 | 63% |
| £50,000 | 8405 | 3300 | 11705 | 8405 | 9000 | 17405 | 0 | 35% |
(*Please note that the fees figure is for £25k may be slightly out.)
Whilst the removal of upfront fees has been heralded as a massive victory by some, on closer inspection it is an outright disaster if the government wishes to increase working class participation. Currently those falling below the £20k parental income threshold pay no fees at all. This is the group most likely to be put of by fear of debt, yet their debts will increase by £5700 where full fees are charged. This is 40% of students. A further 20% only pay partial fees. Also, Charles Clarke claims that 30% of students parents fall below the £10k threshold and will qualify for a full grant, which will come on line before the election in 2004. Fees of upto £3k would not happen until after the next general election. Besides being far less accessible, this 'grant' is just 57% (less in London unless they will be weighted at the todays rate) of what if when David Blunkett abolished it in 1998, after years of Tory cuts.
Many students may say 'Why should I get involved, this won't effect me?', but by making changes that don't come in until current students have finished is the way governments try and minimise opposition. If your parents (if they went to university) had put up more of a fight when things like book and travel bursaries were being abolished, -yes it may seem unbeleivable now but they did exist- we might not be in the dire state we are now.
There are also plans to 'steer non-research intensive institutions towards other parts of their mission' meaning as expected some universities will be stripped of research and PhD funding, with the definition of a 'university' changing to allow institutions which will cease doing research to still be called a university. This will severely impact university funding, which will drive those effected to charge full undergradaute fees and will also limit the diversity of research, student choice and undergraduate teaching.
It is also highly likely that mature students will not have access to HE funding. Currently, a student has to be under 50 in HE to qualify for loans. With greater debts, the government is sure to consider that this limit will fall.
What you can do.
The first step now is to build for the national lobby of parliament on March 5th. A template for a poster is available at the bottom. Ask at your student union/guild if they are providing transport (some may have already spent their campaigns budgets though, so some fund raising may be necessary). If you can't come, please use the tools below to fax your MP. If you are going, use the fax below to write them a letter AND tell them you are coming on March 5th and expect to see them there at work on a work day! If you are living away from home, please remember to fax both your MPs and get your freinds, families and coursemates to do the same. You've got a very good chance of getting a reply.
If you are a union officer with a big budget left, you may want to consider writing to every single MP. Some will say you should only write to your own MP, but university officers will represent students from contituencies accross the country, so as long as you say at the start 'I am writing on behalf of the students I represent and their families who are your constituents.' You will get replies.
If you are a union officer without any money, you may want to see if you can get some free postcards out of Boomerang if you have one of their stands. Templates are at the bottom.
There are also several petitions being collected. These are easy to fill in, but please do send a fax to your MP as it will reflect your views. Maybe not all of these will.
UK against Top-Up Fees
Pay Up Tony
Hodgewatch (petition now closed but worth a look)
Tom at West Brom
NUS (pdf only)
Coming Events
For students in London, there will the opportunity to Grill Minster for HELL, Margaret Hodge at UEL's Docklands Campus on 11th February. For tickets (free, but numbers are restricted) email email Mandie. She will then be at Manchester University SU at 6pm on the 13th email Jennie if you want to attend. Before that, on 3rd February, Charles Clarke will be attending a Public Meeting to discuss the white paper at East Ham Town Hall on the corner of Barking Rd/High Street South on Monday 3 February 7.30pm (Nearest tube: East Ham District Line). There will be an events diary on the site when there are more confirmed events. If you are planning something or would like to provide a report on any of these events please mail us.
There will be a rally in Leeds on 25th March 2003. This starts at midday in millennium square.
At the NUS briefing on Monday 27th, the options for other campaigning were discussed. Although the lobby is the only event which has been arranged, there are also plans for a national shutdown and a national and or a series of regional demonstrations. Groundwork has to be laid for these now. In the past not all lectures have been cancelled, so students need to be asking lecturers if they will give their support when it comes, and union officers need to be talking to counterparts in the institutions trade unions. Some unions have already confirmed they will not be able to attend another national demonstartion due to budget restraints. The suggestion has been made to hold demonstrations on the same day as the national action (which will hopefully be at the weekend this time to maximise attendance) in every city. For this to work, schools and colleges need to be contacted to maximise numbers, as it is them who will be effected the most. There are lots of tactics which can be used, but contacting schools in your area, whether to arrange talks or ask teachers to make an annoucement in class will help a great deal. Having a local demonstration should also hopefully ensure coverage in the local media on the day of national action.
More stuff will be added later, if you have any ideas, comments or suggestions, email campaigns@educationet.org
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Funding Campaign- Tools, Information & Advice.
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Charles Clarke has now delivered the White Paper which will map out student and university funding in the future.
As expected it contains a lot of bad news, with debts of over £20k planned and funding cuts in other areas which will see us move closer to a two-tier system of Higher Education.
So here is a resource centre for student activists to help oppose the proposals.
White Paper Summary & what you can do
 | Left A poster template for
the national lobby. To access a word version RIGHT click here and choose 'save target as'
Right If you can get them done, here's a template of a postcard to send to MPs. Click Here to see more |  |
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Amnesty International say a letter is worth ten protesters,
so here's the easy way to get a letter to your MP. You may not believe this, but not all MPs have published email addresses.
However, you can go straight to a web based fax form just by entering your postcode. More Info and Petitions
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