Tallyman

The Sunday Indepenent on 17th Jan carried a story entitled ‘Grant-aided students buying more booze than books‘. To summarise a ESRI report will state that students who receive the third level maintenance grant spend three times more on booze and socialising than on books and college related aids.

According to the Sindo the report indicates that students spend €132 per month on drinking and socialising dwarfing a mere €30 . For those students I have spoken to about this ‘revelation’ they have got rather defensive. Others of the more academic persuasion have question the validity of the ESRI results and accuracy. I would wonder what year the data represents, as 2007 figures are nowhere near as accurate as 2009 figures, and the need for maintenance grant by certain students. Also see a link to another blog entry by Ferdinand von Prondzynski on the grant and the cuts that ties in with this.

What I can’t understand is this total willingness to ignore what is most likely factual. Only 25% of students receive the grant. Those who receive it are meant to be of low-income backgrounds. Whilst I would accept and acknowledge that there are those on the grant that need every cent that comes, I have, throughout my years in college, seen students who look forward to the grant coming in for only one thing. Socialising.

I know of students who have spent it on their summer holidays, all on clothes or their car insurance. Meanwhile there are students struggling to make ends meat, feed themselves and get to college.

To me this indicates that there may well be a problem not with the thresholds established to ascertain whether a family qualifies for the grant but rather the changing circumstances that may lead to the funding no longer being required by a students. The system needs to be far more flexible in terms of measuring the value in an individual student receiving a grant. When a student gets a part-time job and their family is either more than capable of giving some financial support should that student continue to receive the grant?

I do acknowledge that part-time work is far harder to find in the current climate. But should the system not become more flexible? There are those students whose circumstances may negatively change that could benefit from either an increase in their grant or indeed being awarded a grant mid-way through the academic term.

Grants, like tuition fees has been a highly emotive topic for students, and student leaders for quite some time. It is a system that has its faults. Barry Andrews TD summed it up perfectly when he said:

[The grants system] is fractured and different people apply different policies creating confusion….for everybody who tries to make sense of the area.

The Student Support Bill which was meant to solve all this is still flapping around various government departments as problems and solutions are debated at committees. The 66 bodies who manage and administer the grant are failing. It is not a failure of people , it is a failure of the system. The maintenance grant system has not been overhauled in 18 years and it is my belief that this ESRI report is a sign that government is looking to make quite a substantial change to it, and very soon.

The grant exists to widen participation. The Free Fees Initiative was meant to do the same, but was a failure. We are now in a situation where the dole in more appealing to people than education. For instance USI research has shown a shocking truth.

Since 2002, the payment level of the grant has risen by an average 4.7% per year. This looks good at first glance since prices have risen on average by 3.5% per year. However, it isn’t too promising when one considers that in 2002 the full Maintenance Grant was €54 per week less than unemployment benefit and that gap has become a gulf of €177 per week this year. When one considers too that the grant is only paid to students for 9 months out of the year, it is significantly smaller.

Now the governments decision to decrease jobseeker payments to those under 21 may seek to funnel some into higher education, it by no means will be a long term solution. Couple this with the fact that the Minister has already indicated that grant levels will remain the same for 2010/2011 the dole looks ever more appealing, however short term.

I think some political courage is needed in the Student Support Bill. Scraping what is being proposed – a reduced number of grant awarding authorities and introducing one single body. Now this does not require the creation of another quango. The Dept. of Social Welfare already has on file most of the information that is required and has the trained staff and systems in place to administer this. A single body would also be more capable of knowing when a students part-time income is enough to warrant a review of their grant status. Horrified? Probably. Makes sense, maybe. There is waste in the grant system. And this needs to be acknowledged by both student leaders and the government. After all students’ union recognise more than anyone else the cash-cows students have become, with bars, restaurants and book shops being run by SUs to RRP levels. There are exceptions to that rule however. Some SUs do run their shops on a not-for-profit basis, but why this occurs in some SUs and not others simply comes down to how democratic their structures are, and well it has to be said, the conscience and moral compass of the respective student leaders.

In the UK, which has been the leading light of student’ union service provision in the last ten years, student marketing companies are now a booming industry. In Ireland we only have one or two, but the student entertainment circuit is a lucrative business. How many students’ unions have Entertainment Managers, whose wages are paid from the profits made from events? This isn’t anything bad per se, it makes life far more memorable ( or less depending on the price of a pint).

Should the grant be taken off students who are pissing it against the wall or buying ugg boots or paying their car tax with it. Hell yes. And the system should change to allow those who need it most get access to it.

Oh, and don’t start me about the European Social Fund monies! Mind you DCU’s system is quite good.

Ferdinand’s link here.

Image: (C) The Guardian.