Maintenance Grants - 'The duty of youth is to challenge corruption' - Kurt Cobain

I suppose it was only a matter of time before I got round to writing a blog post about the scrapping of maintenance grants. Over the last couple of weeks, what started off as surprise and disappointment in the government's decision to abolish the grants has slowly brewed into a rather intense outrage, so naturally this blog post seemed like an apt outlet for such a rant.

So to fill those of you in who aren't too sure what I'm on about, I'll start from the beginning.

Maintenance grants are sums of money, up to £3,387 that are available to students from low-income families to help cover living costs at university which don't need to be repaid. They currently provide support for over half a million students across the country, allowing them access to higher education that they might not otherwise have been able to afford.

This month, despite not mentioning anything about it in their general election manifesto last year, the Conservative government voted to scrap these maintenance grants in favour of increased maintenance loans.

Something that is important to highlight is the fact that the policy was originally discussed not in parliament, but in a delegated legislation committee of 18 MPs who hoped to pass the changes away from public scrutiny. I'm grateful to be able to say that uproar from students across the country forced the government to debate it in the house of commons, putting to shame the MPs' efforts to keep it all 'hush hush'.

However, at the debate in the house of commons, the vote to scrap grants won. A mere 11 vote: 292 votes to 303. 

This decision was made despite the fact that

- 40% of parents said that it would discourage their children from going to university

- 1/3 of current students said they wouldn't have attended university without their grants

Thanks to the extortionate rise in the price of higher education, students already have to to endure larger amounts of debt for a longer time whilst trying to repay it. Despite the (somewhat measly) threshold of £21,000 before which repayments are exempt, the average 3 year course graduate will rack up over £30,000 worth of debt after university. The government have already estimated that 30% of loans will never get repaid in full.

Therefore, it does not make sense to pile on yet more financial debt to students who already come from low-income backgrounds. As if access to higher education isn't already compromised for them, the poorest 40% of students will now graduate with up to £53,000 worth of debt. 

In a green paper in November 2015, the government expressed their desire to double the percentage of disadvantaged students entering higher education by 2020, and to increased BME student numbers in higher education by 20%. Yet their own assessment on the impact of scrapping grants has identified that BME students, alongside mature students and female students will be disproportionately effected by their new policy. It just doesn't make sense.

The way the government have gone about this issue has been truly appalling. Not only are the immediate consequences of their changes extremely damaging to higher education and social mobility, but it has highlighted the way in which the Conservative government works as an anti-democratic, underhand vessel.

Below is a picture of 2 Conservative MPs' statements on their views about scrapping the maintenance grants. The left hand side shows a response to an email from John Howell - Henley MP. The right hand side is Bath MP Ben Howlett's statement on the matter.

The text in red indicates identical content in both responses.

What I find difficult about this coincidence, is that if you take Ben Howlett's black-coloured text (the unique statements) out of context, the essence of what he's saying could just as easily be argued in favour of keeping the maintenance grants:

"Coming from a low-income family personally, I received maintenance grants as a student and access to social mobility support and higher education has always been extremely important to me"

"My time at university and my brother’s time at university was a significant financial strain for both myself and my family.  My mother is disabled and my father had to find significant amounts of upfront money to enable us to access university."

Combine this with the hilarious irony that even their names: Howell and Howlett seem to indicate a Doctor Evil and Mini-me relationship, the picture of them being mere puppet's of the Conservative elites is difficult to escape.

Forgive the rousing rally cry, but it is our duty to stand up for those who will be affected by the scrapping of these grants. The decision that has been made is detrimental to social mobility, and has taken steps towards education becoming a commodity and not a right. The power that we have as students has already been demonstrated in successfully forcing government to discuss the changes in government. We have a powerful voice, and despite the decision already made, we should not stop expressing our outrage. This is yet another example of how the right to education is being threatened, we need to act.

For all those who think this blog post is a little too left-wing, or a little too 1984-George-Orwell-esque, I'm just going to throw a Desmond Tutu quote at you:

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."