Clearing rush

Record numbers of students are rushing to get a university place through the Clearing system, as maintenance grants are set to be scrapped by the government and replaced by loans next year.

 
Students who normally would have considered taking a gap year are now forgoing the time off to take advantage of the final year of maintenance grants, which help support students from low-income families.

 
Under the current system, students whose annual household income is less than ÂŁ25,000 receive nearly ÂŁ4,000 a year to help pay for living costs. Once maintenance grants are scrapped, students from these low-income families will be burdened with an additional ÂŁ13,000 in debt upon graduating.

 
Sheffield University, one of the few universities which allows students to register for Clearing early before students receive their A-level exam results on Thursday (August 13), reported that 400 students have booked themselves into Clearing, a figure that the university says is expected to rise to 700 after results come in.

 
The Clearing system, in which students who were not offered a place on their chosen course of study can sign up to secure places on courses with vacancies after receiving their results, has become an increasingly popular route into higher education.

 
Last year students entering university through the Clearing system hit an all-time record of 61,130 – a record that’s expected to be surpassed this year.

 
Despite rising tuition fees, more and more students are signing up to go to university – a trend that’s set to increase after the government lifted recruitment caps on universities, meaning that universities can now take on as many students as they want to.

 
Chancellor George Osborne, who announced the scrapping of maintenance grants as part the government’s summer budget in July, also outlined proposals to allow universities offering “high-quality” courses to hike tuition fees in line with inflation.

 
This would lead to fees, which are currently capped at ÂŁ9,000 a year to rise in excess of ÂŁ10,000 by the end of the decade. Coupled with the scrapping of grants, students, especially from low-income families, will face ever greater levels of debt.

 
The Independent Commission on Fees warned the government that scrapping the maintenance grant in favour of a larger allowance in loans could end up costing the public purse more. Under the current loan system, loans are written off after 30 years, and more than three-quarters of students don’t finish clearing their loans over this time period.

Wiped out?

 
The Commission highlighted that any additional gains to the Treasury from scrapping grants will likely be entirely wiped out by further non-payments on student loans.

 
The Commission also predicted a widening educational attainment gap among students from the poorest backgrounds. Already there is a growing gender gap between boys and girls from low-income households – only 14.7 per cent of boys from disadvantaged groups go into higher education, compared to 21.8 per cent of girls.

 
The Institute of Fiscal Studies estimated that cuts to maintenance grants would mean that students from the poorest backgrounds could graduate with up to ÂŁ52,000 in debt.

 
A recent NUS survey showed just how important maintenance grants were in supporting low-income students in university – more than a third said that cutting maintenance grants would stop them from attending altogether.

 
Unite member and National Union of Students vice-president Shelly Asquith condemned the scrapping of grants that give a leg up to the nation’s poorest students.

 
“The cut to maintenance grants means that those on the lowest incomes will be graduating with the most debt: it is entirely regressive and elitist,” she said.

 
“I am not surprised that some students who were considering time out of education are instead opting to go to university this year so they can access the last year of the grant.

 
“When I was at college I got the education maintenance allowance, and at university I got a grant: the government has now scrapped all of that support, and in turn education is becoming more and more closed off from working class people,” Asquith added.

 
“The National Union of Students will be fighting this disgraceful cut with Students’ Unions across the country as part of our #CutTheCosts campaign.”

 
Barry Faulkner of Unite’s education department noted that scrapping education grants was yet another direct attack on working-class people at the hands of the current Tory government.

 
“This latest attack on the poor is another example of how this government views education,” he said. “To them education is a privilege not a right – one which is merely gained by material wealth.

 
“They know all too well that a well-educated electorate will question their policies and not be easily distracted or divided along the lines they try to divide and demonise us,” Faulkner added.

 
“There’s no wonder that the number of applications have increased in the light of the proposed changes to the funding of education,” he went on to say. “Young people are desperate to create opportunity for themselves to build decent lives, but now they face financial hurdles at each turn.”

 
Find out more about the NUS campaign fighting government cuts to education here.