By Alan Coleman
Charles Clark's statement on higher education funding was a welcome reversal of the Government's fees proposals but set alarm bells ringing for students and their families. Mature students were relieved to hear that they would no longer be required to pay up-front for their own and their children's education at the same time, a possibility under the top-up fees proposals, but the possible alternatives and consequences are now sinking in as yet another age-related barrier to education rises from the depths of a Government that claims to be committed to education for all.
Following last month's revelations that the Government was trying to gain public support for its unpopular proposals by portraying students as drunken layabouts, a cynic might suggest that this u-turn was the Government's original plan and that top-up fees were merely a deliberately inflammatory proposal put forward to scare the public into accepting the equally unpopular graduate tax as the lesser of two evils. The Mature Students Union is pressing the Government to consider a balance between funding students and allowing access to education.
One of the proposals currently under consideration is a higher level of student loan but if that is accepted then more mature students will be forced out of higher education. The age eligibility criterion is currently capped at fifty years and above that age the Government considers a graduate will be sufficiently unemployable to repay the loan. However, it is currently rumoured that this barrier will be lowered still further, distinctly disadvantaging anyone who does not fit the Governments' idea of the 'average student'. Currently, 60%, or 3 million students in the UK are mature. Despite this, the current pilot of Education Maintenance Allowances in Further Education are already denied to students over 19 years of age.
Whilst allowing students a survivable income during their studies is long overdue, increasing the level of financial support by way of a loan will inevitably lead to a lowering of this threshold and prevent more mature students from applying to university and for that reason the Mature Students Union is now calling for a return of the Mature Students Grant.
Another alternative is the graduate tax where students repay their debt through a higher level of income tax. If there is a requirement to repay the loan and/or fees after graduation then the student's remaining working life will inevitably be a factor in deciding the accompanying legislation and again this will restrict widening access to education.
A further blow to mature students is the announcement by Margaret Hodge, the Minister for HELL who attacked student welfare volunteers at the university in her constituency for failing in their jobs by allowing students to fall into debt, to remove the minimum quota system for higher education institutions in respect of candidates from state schools, an obvious consequence of pricing-out 'working class' candidates, but the Minister also proposed a similar quota for younger students from poor backgrounds. The obvious knock-on effect for mature students is that higher education institutions will concentrate on this quota and supplement it with high income providing students, effectively sidelining mature students.
Mature students face a range of age-related discrimination, including funding, healthcare, loss of pension entitlement, graduate employability and so on, and these new proposals appear set to contradict the forthcoming age discrimination legislation due to be enacted by the end of 2006. Despite this, the Mature Students Union has been denied any consultation and input to this most important of education issues.
Funding Special
Top-Up fees via Grad Tax, what a surprise!
Not to say we told you so!
Another 'Huge Victory'- NUS
No Postgrads- coming soon to a uni near you
Participation watchdog to come
Why not GATS?
Mature Students want balanced funding
Straw Strikes Back
NUS National Demo against something....
Step up the offensive
Has NUS acknowledged Graduate Tax?
