Student poverty is now an urgent issue for colleges

The sharp increase in the cost of living is having a serious impact on college students and affecting their mental and physical health as well as their studies. 

Earlier this year, Hartlepool College principal Darren Hankey highlighted the urgent national challenge of student poverty in an AoC blog ‘Should colleges be lobbying on poverty’. And a recent NUS survey of 3,500 students and apprentices has also shone a light on this growing problem. 

The NUS survey included over 900 FE students and found that a growing number of FE students are seeking financial support as they find they can no longer meet their essential costs such as food, travel, energy and housing. 93% of FE students are concerned about their ability to manage financially, over 40% report that student support funds don’t cover their transport costs and 14% are now using food banks.

The scale of the problem is worrying and getting worse

Colleges are constantly telling us how many of their students and their families are struggling to make ends meet. The Joseph Rowntree Trust report UK poverty 2022 showed that nearly a third of all children in the UK are now living in poverty, including 700,000 young people aged 15-19 in education or training. 

If a student is going without food or is constantly worrying about covering their costs, there will be health and welfare consequences and they clearly won’t be able to concentrate on getting the most from their education or training. Each one of these young people is potentially at risk, and the overall level of poverty has the potential to undermine all the good work colleges do to turn their students’ lives around. 

The impact is felt hardest by those students who are already most disadvantaged, including those with caring responsibilities. Black and Asian students and those with SEND are also more likely to be at risk. Low-income households spend a higher proportion of their budget on food, housing and energy and have less of a buffer against rising costs and unexpected expenses. And we know from the work of Jack Monroe that the cheapest staple foods have seen some the biggest price increases.

This is a national emergency

We need to see this as the national emergency that it is and acknowledge that the best way to reduce poverty is to increase the incomes of the poorest families and reduce the costs they face. The removal of the £20 uplift to Universal Credit, the 2-child limit for income-related benefits and the benefit cap have all made things worse. And according to the Child Poverty Action Group (August 2021) 37% of young people in poverty in England are missing out on free meals.

Action can be taken immediately

We need free transport and free meal eligibility to be extended and guaranteed outside term time, potentially to everyone on Universal Credit, including the ‘working poor’. At the moment, funding for free meals for 16- and 17-year-olds out of term time via the Household Support Fund is at the discretion of local authorities and this feels like a postcode lottery. 

The funds which colleges use to support students facing serious hardship are now spread very thinly and need to be enhanced. Surely, now would be a good time to consider restoring something like the Educational Maintenance Allowance (EMA) to help all those students most in need. We know that money would be spent in local economies, helping to support hard pressed local businesses.

Colleges are not standing by as this crisis grows. Many are organising or supporting local food banks and other community responses to poverty. Is it our job to campaign on these ‘non-educational’ issues? Colleges don’t just ‘deliver’ education, they serve and reflect their communities and face their challenges alongside them. If we developed a mental health charter and a student engagement charter, campaigned for votes at 16 and to preserve the EMA it was because we understand the link between students’ health, welfare, sense of agency and belonging and their educational success.

As Darren Hankey says in the conclusion to his blog: “if we are serious about levelling-up then helping colleges tackle the rise in student poverty is must.”