Maintenance grants abolished

In the recent summer budget, George Osborne expressed that providing maintenance grants to those from lower income backgrounds had become “unaffordable” and proposed that they would be replaced with loans.

On Thursday 14 January, a committee consisting of only 18 MPs took ninety minutes in their decision to cut the maintenance grant entirely. The grant is currently provided to over half a million of students in England.

Under the current system, grants are provided to those from households which have a family income of £25,000 or less a year.

Under the new plans however, students will be entitled to £8,200, but this loan means that the amount will have to be repaid once a graduate earns over £21,000 a year.

As a result of the abolition, a protest was organised by National Campaign against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC) and Hope Worsdale.

Demonstrators protested, blocking Westminster Bridge, and gathered in Parliament Square in support of an opposition day debate in the Commons. Warwick’s education officer, Charlie Hindhaugh, was one of the many protestors.

The lobbying from various Students’ Unions across the UK subsequently lead to the Labour Party launching an opposition day debate and an annulment motion which took place on Tuesday 19 January.

MPs ended up voting down on the motion proposing to annul the Conservative’s plan meaning that the decision to axe maintenance grants still remains definite.

The National Union of Students (NUS) say they are “outraged” with this result.

Sabbatical officers have released a statement commenting that the “Warwick SU wishes to express its disgust” at the decision made.

The fact that the decision was “passed by just 14 votes” is what the sabbatical officers refer to as “another blow”.  Keeping maintenance grants were a condition in raising tuition fees which highlights “another broken promise and betrayal of students.”