Mainly good news for student income support reform

From the DEEWR budget document: "Transforming Australia's Higher Education System".

Relatively good news for students this budget with the government substantially(but not fully) implementing the the range of demands around income support reform that NUS and CAPA (and our affiliates) have been campaigning and lobbying ad nauseum about since 2004 (raising the parental means test, lowering the age of independence,
increasing personal income threshold to $400 per fortnight, replacing the existing commonwealth education scholarships with a comprehensive needs based scholarship, increasing value of APAs and making coursework by masters students eligible to apply for income support, exempting university scholarships from income testing for income support payments, removal of OS-HELP fee loan charge, commitment to a triennial cycle of review ).


Youth sleep out for Student-Income Support

Thursday 23rd April 2009 Around Australia students will be sleeping outtonight as part of the National Union of Students Demand A BetterFuture: Less Talk More Action campaign.David Barrow, President of the National Union of Students said “With 21 days until budget night, students are awaiting Labor’s announcement about the funding and reform of student-incomesupport”.“While students aren’t chronically homeless, it is hard to expect qualityeducational outcomes if students are under housing-stress” he said.

“Students in this group include those not supported by their parents butunable to qualify for Centrelink payments; weekly couch-surfers, studentswith commutes of 3-4 hours a day and students working many hours on
night shifts to make ends meet” he said.

“Reform of student-income-support is long overdue. For those with casualjobs, the downturn means that they may loose their casual job, since students are always hit first – they will need a fair student income support
to continue their studies” he said. Student Control of Student Affairs
“Students today have the triple entente of a high HECS debts, 3-5 years in poverty and classes with 20-30 students per tutor. The government must act” he said. “For those commencing studies who have parents that can not or will not support their children (until they are 25), there are scarce jobs around” he
said. “The government has a moral, electoral and economic duty to reform youth allowance today and adequately fund our tertiary education system” he concluded.

Students sleeping-out will be taking a collection for the Red Shield Appeal recognizing the difference between short-term student poverty and longterm chronic homelessness.
Details of each event around the nation and policy goals of the Demand A Better Future Campaign: Less Talk More Action are attached. For further comment
--
David Barrow
National President
National Union of Students Inc

e: pres@nus.asn.au
w: www.unistudent.com.au

Student Poverty

RMIT Student Union is concerned with the amount of university and TAFE students living in extreme poverty. Many students live on low incomes, often well below the poverty line, and some resort to charity for food and accommodation. Current levels of income support for students, as set by the federal government do not address the financial demands that students face, whilst there exists in Melbourne a grave shortage of affordable housing opportunities for students from less-advantaged economic backgrounds

RMIT Student Union will soon start running regular campaign strategy meetings at the City Campus.
To register your interest or get involved, email Brad Buller. brad.buller@rmit.edu.au

Student Housing

As we all know there is a big housing crisis in Melbourne. It's becoming increasingly difficult to find an affordable place to live anywhere near the inner-city. Students in particular are doing it tough, the pressures of having to study and work more and more because of rising rent (and food) prices is too much for many. Studies done at Melbourne Uni. show that as many as 1000 students there could be classified as homeless. Many more are eligible for public housing. In this climate it's clear that we need to do something to claim our right to affordable housing.

Drawing inspiration from STUCCO- the affordable student housing co-op in Sydney which started as a squat and has been running for over 15 years-and from the Keppel st project of early 2006 where students occupied a state government building in the hope of creating a student housing co-op; we think the time is ripe to get active and build solutions. We've already scoped out a few empties (possible sites), have been doing a lot of research and it looks like there's definitely a few ways forward. What needs to happen now is the formation of strong collective ready to take up this project.

To get involved in the Student Housing Action Collective, visit the blog at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shaccers/