How grants work: The current grant scheme, which is due for a change in September 2008, means that students whose family income is below GBP17,910 will receive the full, non-repayable grant of GBP2,765 per year. Those with incomes between GBP17,911 and GBP38,330 will receive a partial grant, decreasing as the income increases. For those whose family income is over GBP38,330, they are not entitled to any grant.
There are in fact two separate grant systems that work like this, the maintenance grant and the special support grant. The only difference is that the maintenance grant replaces some of the student loan, meaning the student then has less money to pay back. Under the new system the grant cut-off has been increased to families with an income of GBP60,000, which certainly will help more students.
However, according to some analyzers, the grant system is not a fair scheme and doesnt completely adhere to the governments intention. Firstly, whether a student is entitled to a grant is based solely on their household income, but doesnt take into account those who come from a split family and live with a single parent. If you only live with one parent, and he or she does not live with a partner, only the parent you live with counts. You other natural parent does not count unless he or she also lives with you.
In theory, it could mean that a child whose parents are no longer together but both of whom are working is receiving a maintenance grant because the parent they live with is single and earns less than the cut off bracket. However, if the incomes of the parents are combined, the total could certainly be above the bracket and so in a normal circumstance, the child would not be entitled to a grant.
Secondly, the entitlement to a grant has no bearing on the number of children in the family. For example, a family of five may earn more than the cut-off point for a grant, but their income has to be split between five people. An only child may be entitled to a grant because their household income is lower, even though this amount of money is not distributed among as many people and so whether they are poorer is up for debate.
However, all agree that the efforts the government is making to increase numbers applying to university are beginning to pay off. In the last year alone, students going into higher education have increased by 6% and it is set to rise even further up until 2010.
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