Social Security, Student Loans and Access to Education
Author | Neville Harris |
Date | 01 March 1991 |
DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1991.tb02651.x |
Published date | 01 March 1991 |
The
Modem
Law
Review
[Vol.
54
The new capital controls give greater central control over housing capital expendi-
ture, where housing authorities
will
find
it
difficult to maintain spending. The
loss
of the ‘cascade’ effect
will
impact heavily on many authorities. The new revenue
and capital controls represent
a
further
loss
of local authority autonomy.
Without
a
dramatic shift in central government policy, council housing is increas-
ingly becoming what has aptly been termed
a
‘residual’ rented sector
.Iz5
Conse-
quently, the quotation at the beginning of this note is of some historical significance.
It marks
a
break with decades of housing policy that expected local authorities to
build and maintain
a
stock
of
rented housing
as
the chief providers of housing to rent.
Social Security, Student Loans and Access to Education
Neville
Harris
*
The
issue
of student loans has been under public discussion for
some
time, but another change
in
their
finances
which affects
many
of them has not been debated
so
much
in
public
-
and
that
is
the removal
of
their housing benefit
.
.
.
It
is
very
unfortunate that, just
as
the wish
of students
to
participate
in
higher education
is
growing,
they should be discouraged
in
this
particular way.
The above statement was made by the Vice-Chancellors
of
eight universities in the
South-East
of
England
in
a
letter published in
The
Times
on 1 October 1990. It
is an expression of the concern felt throughout further and higher education about
the possible impact on access to education
of
recent reforms to student support
-
of which welfare benefits, especially housing benefit, have formed such an important
part. This article explains the background to the reforms and outlines the legal
structure of
the
new system. It focuses
in
particular on
the
almost total exclusion
of students from the benefits system.
The battle to save students’ entitlement to welfare benefits, waged during the
passage
of
the Education (Student Loans) Act 1990 and, more recently, the Social
Security Act 1990, has been lost. With the exception of
a
few limited categories
of student, one of which
was
added
as
a
concession by
the
government during the
latter stages
of
the Social Security
Bill,’
students will have no entitlement to
housing benefit, income support or unemployment benefit until the end of
the
university or college term
in
which
they
complete their course.z Most students will
125 See Malpass,
op
cir
n
20,
chapter
1.
*Faculty of Law, University of Livcrpool.
I
Viz
dcaf students who are entitled to a disabled students allowance: Nicholas Scott MP, HC Deb vol 176,
col 81 (9 July 1990) [Social Security Bill, consideration of Lords amendments]. The Income-Related
Benefits Amendment Regulations 1990,
SI
No
1657 brought this change into cffcct from
1
September
1990.
It
may help to explain that
a
‘student’
for
income support purposes is basically either a 16-18 year
old attending
a
full-time course of advanced education
or
a person aged 19
or
over attending a full-
time course of whatever academic level (Income
Support
(General) Regulations 1987,
SI
No 1967,
reg 61).
For
discussion of the meaning of ‘advanced’ and ‘full-time’
in
this context, see
N.
Harris,
Social
Seatriry
for
Youtig
People
(Aldershot: Avebury, 1989) chap 6.
For
housing benefit purposes,
student means any person taking a
full-
or
part-time course at an educational establishment. Howcver,
the calculation of benefit will vary
in
accordance with whcthcr
or
not the student is full-time (not
defined in the regulations) and whether slhe receives
a
grant (Housing Benefit (General) Regulations
2
258
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