An indication of how bad it now is for many working class students is the
announcement by the University of East London that it had called on thegovernment to help students cope with the cost of living crisis as a matter ofurgency. They called on the government to either increase student loans orgrants. In the mean time it is doubling its hardship funds and providing freeperiod products to female students. ---- Meanwhile as responses to the Augarreview of post-18 education and funding show, working class students face anuphill struggle. The Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) found that those studentsfrom a less privileged background will be hit hardest, paying £30,000 more thancurrent graduates, spread over 40 years. ---- This won't stop students from amore privileged background from going to university, but will certainly put offteenagers from going to university, which will affect supply of graduates toteaching and nursing.The government has put forward proposals to limit loans to those with minimumexam grades. Putting a requirement of a GCSE pass in English and maths might havestopped 10% of recent undergraduates accessing loans, in other words stoppingthem actually going to university. The majority of these, according to the IFS,are from "disadvantaged" families (read more impoverished sections of the workingclass) and from ethnic minorities.The government intends to hugely reduce the amount of investment it has providedby grabbing more back from students. The IFS believes that the proportion ofgraduate students paying back their loans in full could rise from 25% to nearly 75%.The cultural predisposition to go to university as a means of improving job andcareer prospects is much higher among those better off than among working classhouseholds. This will put back the clock to the 1940s and 1950s where the betteroff go to university and the working class don't get a look in. At the same timethe huge cuts to further education, adult continuing education and proper on jobtraining have meant that alternatives to university have been blocked.University funding through tuition fees, frozen at £9,250 since 2016, has beeneroded by inflation despite the government funding through teaching grants ofpriority subjects like health.More and more universities are choosing to enter the lucrative intake of foreignstudents often using privatised spin off companies and outsourced agencies. Withthe result of further attacks on working conditions for staff and teachingconditions for students.A report from the Office for Students in 2021 showed that white working classteenagers from former industrial towns in northern England and on the coasts areleast likely to go to university. This was particularly concentrated in areaslike Nottingham, Great Yarmouth, Barnsley, Sheffield, Stoke and Hull.In addition the think tank the Social Market Foundation (SMF) recently found thatuniversity concentration on A Levels rather than BTECs have also limited thenumbers of working class applicants.Over half of working class and black British teenagers use BTECs to get intohigher education. In the north east of England, SMF figures show that 35% ofwhite working class students went to university solely on the basis of their BTECqualifications. It is the same for 37% of black British students.The elite universities continue to refuse to recognise BTECs and T-levels. A 2019report from the National Education Opportunities Network showed that in over 50%all universities less than 5 per cent of their students were white and from themost deprived neighbourhoods.https://www.anarchistcommunism.org/2022/10/25/student-poverty-and-working-class-exclusion/_________________________________________A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C EBy, For, and About AnarchistsSend news reports to A-infos-en mailing listA-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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