The catchcry of an ‘Education Revolution’ may be popular in the Rudd government, but many university students are failing to see any hint of change in their everyday lives. In fact, many will be financially worse off after this week’s budget.
On paper, students are one of the big winners of the budget announcements. The government will inject billions into university infrastructure, changes to Youth Allowance are aimed to helping those who need it most and the new changes to the teacher to student ratio hopes to improve teaching and learning.
However, the Youth Allowance initiatives are “inadequate” and the government has “not done enough to address the real issues and needs of students” says Frances Lewis, Welfare Officer at the University of Melbourne’s Student Union.
New changes to Youth Allowance eligibility means that many students from middle income families will now miss out on benefits.
Currently students who earn 75% of the maximum Commonwealth training award payment are regarded as independent and can claim Youth Allowance payments. Meaning students often take a year off, work a bit and then start receiving Youth Allowance after their first semester at university, provided they’ve earned around $20,000 in that time period.
Should students be punished for choosing to take off a gap year and work? And is it assumed that all children from families with parents earning over $42,000 (hardly qualifying them as ‘high income earners’) have parents who are willing or able to support them? Many students take a gap year in a deliberate move to receive Youth Allowance payments and take the financial burden off their family.
Should university students be relying on their parents to support them? Not only can many parents not afford to support their children, many choose actively not to support them in order to encourage independence. Many parents, my own included, encourage students to move out of home and gain independence, knowing that Youth Allowance payments will help pay rent and buy food.
However the new changes mean that students whose parents earn more than $42,000 will now have to work 30 hours per week for at least 18 months in a two year period in order to qualify for Youth Allowance payments. How are students supposed to study sufficiently, attend classes and also work 30 hours per week? Students will be forced “to work more hours just to get a liveable wage” says Lewis.
Or, students will be required to delay their university degrees while they work 30 hours per week for 18 months, or until they are 22-years-old and qualify for the newly adjusted age of independence.
Although the government claims it “understands the importance of supporting young people to enhance their skills for the future”, no actual increase has been made to the Youth Allowance payments.
Current figures indicate that Youth Allowance payments already put students under the poverty line, which is $336.56 for a single person. The maximum fortnightly payment from Youth Allowance is $371.40 plus rent assistance to those living out of home (which has a maximum rate of $111.20 per fortnight). Students living at home receive $244.40.
One major reason that changes to the independence criteria have been adjusted is due to the supposed rorting by students from high income families who are living at home and receiving Youth Allowance. If students cannot qualify for Youth Allowance, it seems likely that there would be an increase of students living at home, already a constant complaint by the media about Generation Y.
I have received Youth Allowance payments for three-and-a-half years now, thanks to working during a gap year. Youth Allowance payments have given me the opportunity to study a semester in Spain, helping me to become fluent in Spanish — a language I learnt while travelling overseas during my gap year — surely a valuable skill in our global world. However, if these new rules had been in place five years ago I would never have received Youth Allowance. My outlook on life, my job skills and my education are all richer thanks to my Youth Allowance payments.
Some of the new Youth Allowance changes are long overdue, such as how much students can earn while receiving payments, payments for Masters students and scholarships for students who have to move to study. But the changes to the criteria for independence mean that many worthy and needy students will miss out on necessary financial support.
Students are already suffering financial burdens, particularly with the GFC and high unemployment rates. They do not need further strain on their low budgets. If this government really wants an Education Revolution, it needs to invest in education’s greatest asset — the students themselves.
The Independence Test for receiving Youth Allowance, has long been claimed to be flawed. When it was first introduced its assertion that students, while being able to participate in every other form of adult life, could not be considered to be people independent from their parents until the ripe old age of 25, unless they fulfilled a set of criteria, caused an outcry amongst both students and parents.
While I agree with the sentiment of the author that perhaps working 30 hours/week for 18 months may be excessive to determine independence, I have to say that her justification of her receipt of Youth Allowance as a means to allow her to study in Spain and become fluent in Spanish, is perhaps the very reason that the rules are being changed. Youth Allowance isn’t really supposed to be about a wonderful personal benefit for the person receiving it. So while her outlook on life may be better for having done so, it doesn’t really go very far in the argument towards increasing the payments.
The goal behind Youth Allowance is to (or at least should be) to allow as many students access to higher education as possible – regardless of socio-economic background. This essentially recognises studying as a worthwhile pursuit, which, by means of educating the population (ensuring that in years to come there will still be doctors, lawyers, engineers, scientists, philosophers, teachers etc), benefits society as a whole. The whole point is acknowledging that students are foregoing an income in order to pursue a career that will inevitably benefit many members of society, and as such society rewards them by providing them with a means to support themselves during that time. I’m not sure that supporting yourself necessarily includes global exchanges.
It doesn’t appear to me that any student is being punished for taking a “gap year”, it would seem that there is some encouragement to take more than one year to consider a future choice of education, and whether it is really something that the student wishes to pursue. The extra 6 months of working before resuming study really doesn’t seem like an enormous burden, if anything it allows a student more time to consider whether university is really where they want to be. Given the attrition rate of first year students, perhaps this is something worth encouraging.
I agree with the author, payments made to students are low, and it’s sad to see that they haven’t been increased. Students do form a valuable part of our society (at least I’d like to think so, I’ve been one almost all of my life) and should be recognised as contributing members. Personally I’d most like to see that Age of Independence dropped to equal the age where we recognise that someone is legally an adult. At 18 we’re given the right to vote, drink, apply for a driver’s license, and be tried as an adult, perhaps a recognised independence from our parents would go along nicely with that.*
*I should qualify that this has nothing to do with my own age – I’d pass the test hands down.
Quite clearly, the Youth Allowance rules are discriminatory and inequitable. The children of so-called wealthy parents are entitled to nothing. We have 5 children currently in years 7-10 and we will be expected to continue to support them well into their adulthood.
What if we refuse? Will we be forced, by some law of social engineering, to pay for fear of penalty? Government, and the voters who think we are rich, expect that there is a continuing obligation on the part of the parents and they are partly correct. However, it is one thing to voluntarily assist your children to have a better life, it is quite another to be forced by the state to support another independent adult, where the alternative is destitution. This is particularly harsh on Regional Australians who must leave home to obtain the Education they seek
Of course they can get a part time job and help relieve the burden, but there are not enough of those to go around.
But it gets worse. When a step child is under 18, the absent parent’s income is assessed and they are forced to contribute to the costs of that child. This is fair and has certainly worked both ways in our family. However, once that child is 18 and seeking youth allowance to assist with further education, the residential Step parent’s income is used! There is no mechanism to force the absent parent to contribute because the laws in this area cease to have effect when a child becomes an adult. This can work in your favour if you have the lower income, but can mean that a child/adult who would have been eligible for payments with his parents’ income, is deemed ineligble.
It has been a great budget. Less Health Insurance Rebate – probably fair. Higher penalty for no Health Insurance – again fair? Lower Superannuation thresholds – reasonable. Less FTB – understandable. Even less chance society will assist your children to be educated – this one is outrageous.
And the Jolly to Spain is not something anyone’s taxes should be paying for.
Jakin, I can understand your point about there being some benefits to students waiting longer. However, as someone who has known what they have wanted to study for many years, an extra year away from study would probably have just seen me wittling away my time working in a job I hated. Hardly beneficial to my education.
Darren, it is true that the rules for step children are grossly unfair. I know several students who have been affected by this. You should check out some of the new changes to Youth Allowance though, I believe there are now extra scholarships being given to help cover the cost of rural children moving to study.
In regards to my university exchange to Spain, I’d like to just point out that like many students, I received a university exchange scholarship (which covered my airfares) and my Youth Allowance paid for my rent and food while overseas. Obviously my own savings went into this as well, but the Youth Allowance received is the exact same amount that I would receive normally in Australia, meaning it was no extra cost than usual to the tax payer. The only difference is that I could not work in Spain and therefore my Youth Allowance was even more precious. I learnt more Spanish immersed in Spain for four months than in three years of university in Australia, as many people who have learnt languages will understand.
Under the current independent criteria an estimated 49% of recipients live in households with incomes above $80,000 and 36% of recipients live in households with more than $100,000 – see pages 53-4 of the Bradley report. Clearly the current system is grossly unfair and needs to be tightened. It is better to seek improvements in the support for all recipents of the youth allowance and single parent’s payments which should have been increased in preference to the old age pension which were 30% higher before the budget’s increase.