Opinion

Students need money not an overdraft

The Telegraph published an article on the cost that student living is rising and if loans do not cover students for the year university will be attended by the rich only. Students joining university for the academic year 2014 have been said to have an increase of £55 to their loan, averaging out to 15p a day, hardly enough to buy a chocolate bar.

Regardless of the Telegraph article it seems that there are tonnes of options available to us on how to make the most of our money, how to save it and almost everywhere students are offered 10% discount if not more. It’s as if this underlying problem has been on-going for quite some time but no one seems to be doing anything about it.

Earlier today Student Money Saver’s Facebook page published the post regarding the Telegraph article where it encouraged us students to kick up a fuss. All comments had one thing in common, everyone shared their experience of how they are all struggling to make ends meet due to not having enough money to support them, not one student said they had enough money to live on and did not stress about this. Many students’ commented on how they imagined university to be much different instead of this harsh reality where they have the constant stress of money, struggling to managing their studies and having to work at the same time.

What the government fail to take into account is how much savings an average 18 year old will really have when they go to find that their loan doesn’t cover their rent by £600 how are they supposed to then go and find that extra money to fund themselves. It is appalling that household incomes need to be taken into account to assess how much money a student should have. Not all parents support their children regardless of how much money they earn, the government does not take into account the amount of siblings that parents may have to pay for.

It’s a known fact that most students are in their overdrafts due to many banks offering a maximum of £1,500 interest free overdraft. However to students, banks can be seen as a last resort or some sort of peace of mind when they are desperate for money. On the other hand when you have then reached the maximum of your overdraft because you have had to overspend due to the lack of money available, what next? It then becomes an impossible task to even begin to think about how to repay back your overdraft to £0.

Evidently it can be argued that some students spend the majority of their loan on booze and partying, but due to the living costs rising and loans not matching that, even the party animals cannot afford to do it anymore. A student should receive enough money to live on so that they can study for their degree stress free, the government should not take into account a household income to assess what they receive, it is a student not the parents debt so why is the solution not clear to simply raise the amount of money we receive? The question remains that if student loans continue to not cover us for the academic year, what will happen to the future of students?

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