Why We Need #SummerSAAS
Students across Scotland are facing a financial cliff edge. Blocked from accessing Universal Credit and with student support stopped for the summer months, many students are without any financial safety net. Most students rely on seasonal work to survive the summer and with ongoing lockdown restrictions and mass unemployment, these jobs don’t exist anymore. Throwing money into hardship funds which are neither accessible to all those who need them or designed to support a person for several months, is not what students need. We are calling on the Scottish Government to use the existing student finance framework and introduce #SummerSAAS.
Students are particularly affected by the pandemic as they are less likely to be able to find temporary work, which is normally required to make ends meet in the summer months. With the ongoing economic issues faced by employers and increased unemployment rates across the country, students will be even less likely to find work or may be unable to work at all, particularly if, for example, they or members of their household have underlying health issues. Students are unable to claim Universal Credit under the current criteria and for the vast majority of students, any student finance will have stopped until mid-September as the payments are made on a term-time basis. Therefore, a significant number of students have no access to funds between now and the start of the academic year in three months’ time. This issue will be most acutely felt by those who have limited or no recourse to family support to see them through the summer, for example, students from disadvantaged backgrounds, care-leavers and students who are estranged from their family.
The current system where additional funds have been distributed to institutions to then administer in the form of hardship funds is inadequate. Although we welcome the Scottish Government announcing £11.4 million to go into these funds, we are concerned that this money is just brought forward rather than new money, disadvantaging students down the line. Some institutions have closed applications for the year. The applications that are still open are often lengthy and are accompanied by a degree of stigma, reducing the likelihood of people to apply. These funds are running out of money and refusing applications from students in need. These one-off discretionary payments fail to provide financial security to students. Even if the UK Government were to change the criteria to allow students to apply for Universal Credit, this would also be an inadequate response due to the inherent flaws in the UC system including the waiting time of five or six weeks before the start of payments.
Therefore the Scottish Government must work with student bodies, funding agencies and loan companies to ensure financial security for students by continuing to pay out student finance over July and August. For instance, where a student currently receives a loan and bursaries from the Students Awards Agency for Scotland, they would have the option to continue to receive this money over the coming summer months. We want to see this funding take the form of non-repayable grants, equivalent to students’ normal monthly student finance payment. We are in an unprecedented crisis, and the answer cannot be destitution or debt for students. A Universal Basic Income is becoming a real possibility with SNP MPs supporting the idea in the face of economic collapse. By providing grants to students, we have the opportunity to kickstart the economy while providing financial security to thousands of students, keeping them in education at a time when our universities and colleges have never been more important. We want this #SummerSAAS scheme to extend to all further and higher education students in Scotland (recognising that not all college students receive finance through SAAS), with additional hardship funding available for those who do not qualify such as international students or students not normally in receipt of loans, ensuring no one falls through the cracks.
Furthermore, any summer payments would have to be administered in such a way as to ensure no negative impact on students on their funding entitlement. Where a student has to claim the maximum available loan to qualify for certain bursaries, choosing not to claim the summer loan would not then disqualify them from bursaries next academic year. Given the cliff-edge that the graduating class of 2020 currently face, with graduate schemes and jobs mostly being cancelled, this summer extension of student finance ought to apply to them too to provide a safety net as people leave education and enter the workforce at a time of unprecedented financial uncertainty.