Student poverty soars

A new study has found that students are more indebted, impoverished and financially stressed than ever before. Universities Australia’s University student finances report notes that between 2006 and 2012, the average real debt for an undergraduate student rose by $9,000 to $38,000.

The proportion of students in financial stress rose by approximately 12 percent to two-thirds of all students. Financial stress is even more widespread among Indigenous and low socioeconomic background students (79 percent and 77 percent respectively).

The report also found that 20 percent of students are forced to skip meals or other necessities.

Most pressing for students are extremely low incomes, with around two-thirds of students earning less than $20,000 a year compared to their average annual expenditure of $37,000.

This is compounded by the fact that a majority of students can’t access government income support payments. Only 33 percent of full-time domestic undergraduates received youth allowance, a meagre payment of $29 a day. It hasn’t been increased in more than 10 years.

Students are increasingly forced to seek paid employment to survive, in a job market in which youth unemployment is nearly 12 percent.

Those students who managed to find a job worked an average 16 hours a week during semester. A third of these students said they regularly missed classes because of work.

In a context in which the Labor government has announced a further $2.3 billion of cuts to tertiary education, the report paints a dire picture of student poverty.

These cuts include $7 million stripped from Indigenous and low socioeconomic support funding, and an attack on student welfare payments.

Next year, students who receive youth allowance will have their payment cut by $2,000 a year as the government converts the start-up scholarship into a loan.

The National Day of Action against the cuts to higher education provides an important opportunity for those who want a more equitable, accessible and fully funded education system to stand together and demand action.