Adelaide Student Politics

Mark Joyce (Board Director, and Liberal Club VP) has written a budget response. Now is as good a time as any to mention that AdelaideStudentPolitics is happy to post any pieces written by people other than Hannah or I, provided they're not evil in nature. I will determine what is and isn't evil. Enjoy, and feel free to respond.

NUS has no reason to be boasting
By Mark Joyce

At the most recent AUU Board meeting, NUS National President, David Barrow, addressed the Directors for the whole of five minutes. The president had flown in from Melbourne as part of his national tour in which he boasted about the “future” changes to student income support that he attributed to himself and his organization in an attempt to prove the relevance of a impotent debating society.

The changes were announced as part of the less than impressive federal budget and consisted of: an increase in the parental income test for dependent students to become eligible for Youth Allowance and ABSTUDY; reducing the age of independence for such allowances from 25 to 22; extending income support to all masters by coursework programs; relaxing the personal income test to $400 per fortnight a student can earn before their income support is reduced; a new Student Start-up Scholarship of $2254; and the introduction of a Relocation Scholarship of $4000 in the first year of study and an additional $1000 for each subsequent year available to students who are unable to live in the family home.

These changes on face value appear great for students; however, as to be expected from the current government, the devil is in the detail. Closer inspection show these changes to be spin over substance, with most of the positive changes coming into effect after most current students have graduated and the negative changes coming into effect as early as the start of next year, leaving many students, particularly rural students, worse off.

The modest increase in the parental income test has the net effect of extending student support to only a further 5% of all domestic students. This takes effect in 2010. The reduction in the age that arbitrarily determines if you are independent will only be implemented gradually, with the full reduction being 22 years of age only coming into effect in 2012. This will be of no benefit to students who commence a three-year degree (such as nursing, science or commerce) immediately after finishing high school, as they will be only 21 years of age when they graduate. But well done to engineering students who turn 22 in the final days of their four-year course, from 2012 onwards that is. Likewise for masters by coursework students, if the course you are currently studying excludes you from accessing income support, the chances are you will never see it, as you will be long graduated by 2012 when the changes take effect. The relaxing of the personal income test will only take effect in 2011. Until then students can only earn $118 per week until their income support is docked.

Both the two new scholarships are anything but new, being only differently branded reincarnations of existing scholarships. The Start-up Scholarship replaces the Commonwealth Education Costs Scholarship and the Relocation Scholarship replaces the Commonwealth Accommodation Scholarship. The major substantive difference in both is Centrelink will arbitrarily administer them to eligible students removing the discretion Universities had to accommodate for unfortunate students that did not meet suggested guidelines with the former scholarships. The detail now requires that to be eligible for a Start-up Scholarship a student must be receiving Youth Allowance, Austudy or ABSTUDY. All students who meet this requirement will automatically receive the scholarship. To be eligible for a Relocation Scholarship a student must now be receiving Youth Allowance or Austudy in addition to arbitrary criteria to do with location and whether a similar course is offered in the vicinity closer to home.

The biggest devil in the detail is the changes make it greatly more difficult to become eligible for Youth Allowance by making it harder to be deemed independent. The Minister’s media release provides, “students who have worked full-time for a minimum of 30 hours a week on average for at least 18 months in a two-year period since leaving school will still be considered independent – but students who have undertaken part-time work or earned over $19 532 over 18 months will not.”

The unnecessary implications of this change will be most severely felt by rural high school graduates with aspirations of commencing tertiary education. Through no fault of their own, our rural brothers and sisters often have no option but to move out of the family home to make one of their most basic rights a reality. The cost of moving to a capital city and residing near or on campus is approximately $15 000 a year. Metropolitan students incur this cost almost always by choice. With the new combined parental income test being set at $42 559, a rural family earning $45 000 is left with only $30 000 if they send ONE child to university, (such a borderline scenario could have been avoided with the discretion the preceding scholarship had). For this reason most rural students defer the commencement of their tertiary education for a year in which they work to meet the independent threshold, only becoming eligible for Youth Allowance in May of their first year at university. The changes as outlined above, will force most rural students seeking to commence university to defer their dreams for not one year, but now two years. What the NUS, the ALP and the Bradley Report failed to take into account is that in rural areas there is less people which inherently results in less jobs being available, especially for un-skilled workers seeking to work for 30 hours a week on a full time basis. Universities know students who have gap years are more likely to drop out than students that do not, after two consecutive gap years many rural high school graduates may defer university indefinitely.

Some education revolution.

Mark Joyce
Vice-President
Adelaide University Liberal Club