When I was at university in the 1970s, students felt financially on a more or less level playing field. The state gave a standard grant that was just enough to live on; those with better-off parents got less than the full grant; all but the meanest parents topped this up to the state-ordained level.
Today, only undergraduate students with a family income of less than £17,500 receive a full maintenance grant of £2,700 a year, and those with a family income of up to £37,425 receive a partial grant. But the student loan, at an average of £3,400, only pays for about half the cost of living at university, with the grant nowhere near enough to make up the shortfall for all but the very poorest students. The rest must come from parents, from working at Tesco or by running up more debts. No wonder so many young people from families of modest means stay away.
Recently, however, the government has announced it is raising the maximum grant marginally, by £125, but more importantly, it is raising the maximum family income eligible for the full grant to £25,000, and raising the maximum for getting some grant to £60,000. This means that more students from low-income families can get their living costs more or less covered by grant plus student loan. It also means that a full or partial grant once again goes to most students (about two thirds), and that a student might expect a top-up from parents to the full rate according to family means.
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