Setting us free: Cutting University grants harms the most vulnerable

When I came to University I was full of hope. This was was something I’d worked for for years, something which I had the capacity to do. I was a poor student, below the lowest wage line, at one of the best universities in the country. I’d smashed more statistics than I thought possible. But more than anything, it was an escape. Financially, mentally, physically an escape from a life which was awful, in all three of those categories. My parents were, are, I suppose, abusive.

That’s been the case throughout my childhood years, all the way up until I finally left home. I grew up in a household which was designed to cow children into utter submission. My parents deprived me of everything they possibly could, including education. It was also a poor household. We struggled for food, necessities, everything. Well, everything, it seemed, except for alcohol. When all else fails, wine, apparently.

So University was an escape, one that I ended up physically fighting for. I was able to finally be independent, to be free. To escape a cage which had held me for far too long. I was able to escape the kitchen I was strangled into unconsciousness in. I was able to escape the bedroom where I was nearly suffocated to death.

So University was an escape, one that I ended up physically fighting for. I was able to finally be independent, to be free.

I was able to run from the living room where my parents tortured me into telling lies at school, so that my bullies would win (this was to make me “stronger”). Free from the house where food was strictly rationed until the point I gained an eating disorder. And how did I escape? Money. Plain and simple; money. University provided me an escape through grants, large grants, to live independently. I certainly didn’t live a life of luxury; that’s not really possible, despite many middle class adults somehow thinking it is. But I was able to buy food, drink, eat well. For once I was able to sleep without nightmares.

Freedom is an odd concept, probably because it means so many things to so may different people. For me, it was escaping this cage. But the same is true for many people: University is their first chance to be free. To live. And for the poor, to be financially independent. The government has betrayed those people. They’ve stabbed them in the back. They’ve taken away the very means those people have to escape, to advance in a system which is supposedly meritocratic. By taking grants away from the poor, the Tories have confirmed their commitment to blight poor youth. They don’t care about refugee children, they don’t care about english children.

But the same is true for many people: University is their first chance to be free. To live. And for the poor, to be financially independent. The government has betrayed those people.

My story is possibly pretty unique, possibly not. I don’t know. But the truth is, if it weren’t for grants, I wouldn’t be at university, I couldn’t be. I couldn’t justify that enormous debt, especially considering that decent employment is about as rare as a stones that bleed. I would still be trapped, still with my parents. I say that I don’t know if anyone has the same story as me, but in reality, their must be someone. And more than anything, I pity them. Where’s their future now?