Thursday, 7 May 2020
Tuesday, 7 April 2020
Why pay Rent & Accommodation costs 3rd term 2020? - it's a Dilemma
Student's really must be wondering what to do about their third term installment of rent when they have left to go "home home".
Some accommodation providers have released their tenants from their contracts where they have chosen to return home due to the current pandemic. Others accommodation providers have not and Student Unions and others are lobbying hard for the cause.
Here is some information to help those wondering what to do and considering their options.
Shelter provide information on what action might be taken if the landlord does not waive the rent for the third term and the tenant does not pay the rent they are liable for.
It is an interesting dilemma, as some students are having to stay in their rented accommodation. Perhaps because they are from overseas or they are estranged from their family or are a care leaver. Should these students have to pay their rent while others with the same legal contractual obligation not have to pay? Given that the funders appear to be awarding the full third term installment of maintenance loan, this would make those students with no "home home" to return to, financially worse off.
Also worth remembering is that not all private landlords are able to afford the unexpected loss of income either.
It is a tricky matter, so do always seek specialist housing advice and guidance (see below).
For Housing Advice see
www.shelter.org.uk
www.citizensadvice.org.uk
www.nationaldebtline.org.uk
Some accommodation providers have released their tenants from their contracts where they have chosen to return home due to the current pandemic. Others accommodation providers have not and Student Unions and others are lobbying hard for the cause.
Here is some information to help those wondering what to do and considering their options.
- Most rent payments particularly to the Higher Education Institutions and large student accommodation providers are paid by direct debit. Student's often do not realise that they can cancel direct debits themselves with their banks. Banks often need at least 3 working days notice to amend or cancel direct debits. This may be an option to choose while negotiating with the landlord about a way forward.
Student Bedroom |
- Most accommodation contracts or tenancy contracts are valid legal agreements and the current pandemic does not render them void.
- It is an option for a tenant to write to the landlord or accommodation provider and ask for their discretion to release them early from the terms of the contract. However the landlord is not obliged to do so.
- For most Assured Shorthold agreements, action against a tenant for not paying their rent (arrears) can not be taken (by the landlord or accommodation provider) until 2 months rent arrears has accrued. Generally this means that a landlord can not begin Possession Proceedings on the grounds of rent arrears until 2 months rent is owing.
- Due to the pandemic, the government introduced new rules which extend this period to 3 months, introduced as of 26th March.
- So for many students this is likely to take them to beyond the end of their contract. This 3 month grace period could allow time for negotiations and the outcome of lobbying to be reached.
Shelter provide information on what action might be taken if the landlord does not waive the rent for the third term and the tenant does not pay the rent they are liable for.
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Student in accommodation |
It is an interesting dilemma, as some students are having to stay in their rented accommodation. Perhaps because they are from overseas or they are estranged from their family or are a care leaver. Should these students have to pay their rent while others with the same legal contractual obligation not have to pay? Given that the funders appear to be awarding the full third term installment of maintenance loan, this would make those students with no "home home" to return to, financially worse off.
Also worth remembering is that not all private landlords are able to afford the unexpected loss of income either.
It is a tricky matter, so do always seek specialist housing advice and guidance (see below).
For Housing Advice see
www.shelter.org.uk
www.citizensadvice.org.uk
www.nationaldebtline.org.uk
Monday, 6 April 2020
Levitate Student; Student Finance 2020
Aimed at students .....
- studying a first undergraduate degree
- who normally live in England before their course begins
- who will apply to Student Finance England for student finance
- who will be studying at a Higher Education Institution outside of London
N.B. This presentation is for information only, it should not be construed as advice and should not be used in place of information provided by the government and Student Finance England on www.gov.uk
Saturday, 14 March 2020
Levitate Student - Can You Please Stop Dumbing Down Student Money Advice!
I have worked tirelessly over the years to establish student money advice services that have safe service boundaries and appropriate quality measures in place. I have worked to ensure staff providing Information Advice and Guidance have the appropriate competency levels to be delivering such services.
When I first moved from Citizens Advice to the HE Advice sector my new manager told me that I would be able to "get my supervision from Citizens Advice" (where I still volunteered some of my time). I could not believe it!! It was clear I had joined an employer and a service that had no professional supervision mechanisms in house. No one was checking the quality or consistency of the advice been given by the various team members and the team were free to advise on what they fancied - from student money to benefits and debt matters, you name it. No framework, no limits no boundary.
I wondered whether to run for the hills immediately or stay and try and do something to change things. I chose the latter and over time introduced appropriate competency ring fencing around the advice service. I introduced a method for the advisers to peer review each others work and coach one another to ensure quality, consistency and improvement. I drew up clear distinctions between which areas of IAG we would provide specialist advice on and which we would limit to generalist guidance with signposting to specialists.
Over the years it became clear that the quality of money IAG provision in the HE sector is patchy to say the least. Student Unions are much more likely to be accredited with a recognised advice quality mark than services provided by the universities themselves. While the National Association of Student Money Advisers have introduced an "accreditation" , it seems to be limited to a form of confirmation of engaging with Continuous Professional Development rather than establishing any minimum standards or competency framework. That said I would argue it is not something they should be required to provide, rather it is the responsibility of the Higher Education Institutions (HEI's) to ensure the quality of the services they deliver.
There is a tendency in some HEI's to "keep it simple" when informing their prospective students and their families on money matters. They don't need to know the nitty gritty after all do they?. Unfortunately there is nothing simple about student finance rules and regulations and the way these impinge on and conflate with other rules and regs such as those governing welfare benefits etc. Open Days are often fronted by teams from Admissions or Recruitment who have little specialist knowledge on the complexities of money matters. They have a neat little powerpoint covering the basics (which is fine) but how many of these staff in the corporate T-shirt with the matching corporate smile, simply fold, guess and ultimately mis-guide when asked a tricky money question by a customer?
One such member of staff said to me that in their view it simply isn't appropriate to be talking about "personal stuff" like divorce or family break down or illness at an Open Day stand. I presume they felt a customer with a question about whether they might lose their benefits on moving university or what to do because they have been kicked out of home, needs to just step aside and stop putting a dampener on the lovely event. I mean look at the lovely balloons - we don' want to be talking about fleeing violence today!!
At one Open Day a concerned and confused staff member came to find me to say that in a lecture an Academic was telling a group of postgraduate pre-registration NHS students and their families that they could get a £13K tuition fee loan. Was this right she asked me. Er no!!
It was quite amusing and a tad intimidating when told of my concern, the Academic came marching up to me to inform me the law had changed for NHS students and now they could get the student loan to pay the fee. When I asked him what regulation he was referring to he was very light on detail. I made him aware of the regulations that had actually recently changed and the rules that limited the fee loan available to £9,250. Also of the right of institutions had to charge more than the £9,250 for this sort of course if they so choose. However I guide him and the faculty accountant and the finance director that it would be challenging for these students to make up the difference themselves for a course fee of £13K given (were eligible) they would only have access to the £9,250 fee loan. We took steps to contact all the customers and correct the mis-guidance, signpost them to our service for help and to bring in the Student Loans Company to provide some training in the Faculty of Health.
Given my role as a manger with student finance expertise - why hadn't I been consulted prior to the Open Day? Because Student Finance is a subject that many folk reckon they can have a reasonable guess at - because its bound to work like this, right??
I was talking again this week about discussing student finance with prospective students and their families. Keep it simple - a very short talk was the steer. In Citizens Advice if a client comes to talk about Universal Credit the advisers don't think, I will keep it dead simple, I won't mention this rule, or flag up that timeframe - its too complicated for this client and not simple. No - they have a duty to advise in a complete manner and account for the advice given in a thorough record. They are trained and skilled at ensuring clients receive appropriate, correct and complete information irrespective of the clients level of understanding, prior knowledge, vulnerability, level of English etc. It takes skill, patience, support but it doesn't involve giving incomplete help though...information about their rights and responsibilities are not dumbed down.
Universities and HEI's should have a similar duty of care and service quality standards or stop advising. How many students have made incorrect choices based on poor guidance they have received from an HEI? Who knows, as in many cases the conversations and "advice" given won't be recorded anywhere. In a recent role I faced a fairly high level of indignation when I joined as a new service as manager and insisted that the team stop saying they were Advisers. None of the required quality measures and competency frameworks where in place so I restricted their activities to Information and Guidance only. I brought in trainers from AdviceUK to provide some basic training on the difference between these and to add gravitas to my insistence of what changes would be needed before Money Advice could be given. This service had of course been running for many years before I arrived......
The problem lays with the senior managers who appoint staff to deliver these services with little to no understanding of what is required and what "good practice" is. Like I did way back when, many staff try to make these services safe themselves where there is a dereliction of responsibility by their employer. That's not okay and it's not fair.
I would love the Office for Students to set minimum quality standards for HEI's delivering Student Money Advice services - and it should never be dumbed down.
When I first moved from Citizens Advice to the HE Advice sector my new manager told me that I would be able to "get my supervision from Citizens Advice" (where I still volunteered some of my time). I could not believe it!! It was clear I had joined an employer and a service that had no professional supervision mechanisms in house. No one was checking the quality or consistency of the advice been given by the various team members and the team were free to advise on what they fancied - from student money to benefits and debt matters, you name it. No framework, no limits no boundary.
I wondered whether to run for the hills immediately or stay and try and do something to change things. I chose the latter and over time introduced appropriate competency ring fencing around the advice service. I introduced a method for the advisers to peer review each others work and coach one another to ensure quality, consistency and improvement. I drew up clear distinctions between which areas of IAG we would provide specialist advice on and which we would limit to generalist guidance with signposting to specialists.

There is a tendency in some HEI's to "keep it simple" when informing their prospective students and their families on money matters. They don't need to know the nitty gritty after all do they?. Unfortunately there is nothing simple about student finance rules and regulations and the way these impinge on and conflate with other rules and regs such as those governing welfare benefits etc. Open Days are often fronted by teams from Admissions or Recruitment who have little specialist knowledge on the complexities of money matters. They have a neat little powerpoint covering the basics (which is fine) but how many of these staff in the corporate T-shirt with the matching corporate smile, simply fold, guess and ultimately mis-guide when asked a tricky money question by a customer?
One such member of staff said to me that in their view it simply isn't appropriate to be talking about "personal stuff" like divorce or family break down or illness at an Open Day stand. I presume they felt a customer with a question about whether they might lose their benefits on moving university or what to do because they have been kicked out of home, needs to just step aside and stop putting a dampener on the lovely event. I mean look at the lovely balloons - we don' want to be talking about fleeing violence today!!
At one Open Day a concerned and confused staff member came to find me to say that in a lecture an Academic was telling a group of postgraduate pre-registration NHS students and their families that they could get a £13K tuition fee loan. Was this right she asked me. Er no!!
It was quite amusing and a tad intimidating when told of my concern, the Academic came marching up to me to inform me the law had changed for NHS students and now they could get the student loan to pay the fee. When I asked him what regulation he was referring to he was very light on detail. I made him aware of the regulations that had actually recently changed and the rules that limited the fee loan available to £9,250. Also of the right of institutions had to charge more than the £9,250 for this sort of course if they so choose. However I guide him and the faculty accountant and the finance director that it would be challenging for these students to make up the difference themselves for a course fee of £13K given (were eligible) they would only have access to the £9,250 fee loan. We took steps to contact all the customers and correct the mis-guidance, signpost them to our service for help and to bring in the Student Loans Company to provide some training in the Faculty of Health.
Given my role as a manger with student finance expertise - why hadn't I been consulted prior to the Open Day? Because Student Finance is a subject that many folk reckon they can have a reasonable guess at - because its bound to work like this, right??
I was talking again this week about discussing student finance with prospective students and their families. Keep it simple - a very short talk was the steer. In Citizens Advice if a client comes to talk about Universal Credit the advisers don't think, I will keep it dead simple, I won't mention this rule, or flag up that timeframe - its too complicated for this client and not simple. No - they have a duty to advise in a complete manner and account for the advice given in a thorough record. They are trained and skilled at ensuring clients receive appropriate, correct and complete information irrespective of the clients level of understanding, prior knowledge, vulnerability, level of English etc. It takes skill, patience, support but it doesn't involve giving incomplete help though...information about their rights and responsibilities are not dumbed down.
![]() |
Money Wordcloud |
The problem lays with the senior managers who appoint staff to deliver these services with little to no understanding of what is required and what "good practice" is. Like I did way back when, many staff try to make these services safe themselves where there is a dereliction of responsibility by their employer. That's not okay and it's not fair.
I would love the Office for Students to set minimum quality standards for HEI's delivering Student Money Advice services - and it should never be dumbed down.
Tuesday, 2 October 2018
From Hardship to a Helping Hand - guest essay
From
Hardship to a Helping Hand: it is time for Universities to rethink Student
Money Support
Introduction
“Yours Sincerely, Oliver Twist!”
This is how a student
signed an email to me in my role as manager of a Higher Education (HE) Money Support
Service. No doubt, his was tongue firmly in his cheek but he was letting me know
how he felt about coming to me for a handout.
At that time, I was
facilitating a steering group, leading the Personal Finance strand of the University
Wellbeing Strategy. Meetings took place in a building once occupied by Emmeline
Pankhurst circa 1894 in her role as a Manchester Poor Law Guardian(Worthington, 2002). What would she make, of hardship handouts, not
in the street of Victorian England, but in seats of world-class tertiary
education in 2018?
“Hardship“ has become
embedded in the parlance of the HE sector. The affordability issue grew over
the years, as government attempted to shift the opportunity of tertiary
education from the privileged few into the reach a third of 18 year olds (UCAS, 2017).
However, “hardship” need
not be an inevitable consequence of wider participation. HE institutions should
shake Dickensian undertones and move away from providing support under the
banners of Hardship, Crisis and Emergency. Instead, they should focus on raising
money confidence of students. They should promote money knowledge,
resourcefulness but, more importantly, self-awareness into personal attitudes
to money. HE institutions should consider incentivising engagement with money
support services and, instead of topping up incomes, use funds to help students build up assets.
Historical Context and
Time to change
In 2004, the government
introduced the Access to Learning Fund (ALF) replacing pre-existing hardship
Loans and grants. This change was prompted by the Higher Education Act 2004,
which introduced variable higher tuition fees (UK Government,
2004). The aim of the ALF was to provide “simpler and more transparent
arrangements for students in financial difficulty (Department for
Education and Skills, 2003).
For 2013-14 alone, a £37 million budget was
allocated to the ALF nationally. Multiplied by the ten years it ran, this was
quite an investment in hardship. Over those ten years, institutions reported
back annually with head count data. In 2014, funding was withdrawn, leaving
institutions to their own devices. Most have continued to provide hardship
schemes administered using a version of the former ALF guidance.
If the ALF was introduced
in response to concerns that fee increases may deter those from low income
backgrounds from entering HE, then time has proven the worry unfounded. The
Department of BIS 2014 report “National Strategy for Access and Student Success
in Higher Education” stated
“UCAS data shows that, between 2012 and 2013, application rates for
18-year-olds to fulltime undergraduate courses have increased by one percentage
point to 35 per cent. It also reports the highest recorded rates of
applications from people from disadvantaged groups – continuing a pattern of
substantial increases over the past 10 cycles.” (Department
Business for Innovation and Skills, 2014)
In those 10 cycles, no
attempt was made by government to explore the difference ALF made to the
millions of funds recipients. Emmeline Pankhurst, writing in her memoirs of the
Poor Law Guardians, could almost have been describing the ALF accounting
process when she wrote:
“I found that the law was being very harshly administered. The old
board had been made up of the kind of men who are known as rate-savers. They
were guardians, not of the poor but of the rates”. (Pankhurst, 1914) .
The government has
arguably changed their stance as they now call for “a robust approach to evaluation,” so the sector understands “which of their activities have the
greatest impact on access, student success and progression”(Department
Business for Innovation and Skills, 2014). With
little historic data to steer them, it must hard for HE institutions to decide
whether it is strategically wise to continue to invest in money support.
However they do now need
to decide their own strategy on money support; devise their own rationale and
priorities and, more importantly, evaluate outcomes and impact. Instead of
being “rate savers” focusing on good hardship fund accounting, attention should
be on meaningful interventions that benefit students and fulfill strategic aims
of retention, progression and success.
Financial Capability –
whose job is it anyway?
One might object here
about whether responsibility lays with universities to deliver money support.
The government provide the statutory funding and plenty of supporting guidance.
Help is available via independent agencies too, for example, the consumer guru
Martin Lewis takes a lead in championing student finance matters. It could be
reasoned, that resources such as these should suffice in providing money
guidance. Surely if the issue is that statutory
funding is not enough, then this is a matter for the central governments of the
UK and not the universities role to provide a money top up.
Universities offering
money support and Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) may in fact be failing
in that responsibility. The National Union of Students Poverty Commission in
their report “Class dismissed: Getting in and getting on in further and higher
education” were scathing about HE providers, stating:
“there is a market in poverty: the tertiary education environment has
either knowingly or unknowingly commodified class. It has generated specific
income streams by monetising inequality and risk. This ‘poverty premium’ is
endemic and is present throughout the various educational transactions,
services and consequences relating to people from working class backgrounds.”
And that:
“Student loans are recycled into extraordinary profits for landlords and
bus companies while students experience poverty.”(NUS Poverty
Commission, 2018)
Universities of course are
landlords, providing accommodation and charging rents which the NUS say are
“exceeding what is affordable”.
The assertions by the NUS suggest that HEIs are
neither sufficiently independent nor impartial to deliver money guidance. The
alternative of leaving money guidance to NUS affiliated advisers or third
sector leaders such as Citizens Advice, would perhaps be better for students.
How could the provision
of on campus money IAG be better for students? Well, a review of research on
what matters to young people in terms of advice provision states:
“Young people want their advisers to specialise in working with young
people […] Due to a strong sense of belonging and identity, young people tend
to be far more comfortable getting advice from advisers who are focused solely
on their age group rather than on the public as a whole. […]
They need a ‘powerful friend’ to advocate for them and “value the
ability of their advisers to get things sorted out” (Kenrick, 2009).
Compared to non-student
specific agencies, expertise could be claimed by HEI money support staff, who are
members of the National Association of Student Money Advisers, which claims to
be:
“… the UK’s leading experts regarding student finance and student money
issues.” (NASMA, 2018)
Indeed, in spite of their
criticism, the NUS poverty commission doesn’t ask for HEI to stop providing
guidance but to simply “ensure information, advice and guidance meets the needs
of learners not providers” (NUS Poverty
Commission, 2018).
Students experience
better outcomes when they have a sense of “belonging” and feel “supported and
encouraged” in their day to day encounters with university staff (ARC Network, 2015). So the delivery of high quality money IAG within
the HE institutions should arguably lead to better outcomes than if this help
were provided off campus.
The government wants to
“develop a more joined-up approach to the provision of effective information,
advice and guidance through the schools and further education sectors and into
and beyond higher education”. Rather than “static” IAG they want more
personalised programmes of support, embracing the needs of the students and
also their “parents, carers and other key influencers” (Department
Business for Innovation and Skills, 2014).
If now is the time for
HEIs to review their support fund provision; they would be wise to also look at
their IAG model and the competencies of those tasked to deliver it.
Given the lack of ALF data,
the HE sector could look instead towards the wealth of research carried out by
the Money Advice Service (MAS) to inform its money IAG strategy.
MAS have identified that young adults have a
preference for receiving guidance from family, peers or near peers (Harrison, Marchant
and Ansell, 2016). MAS have
also identified money tips that young people respond well to. They guide that
young people need IAG to be achievable, include calls to action, not be over
simplified and that it also should be empowering rather than reprimanding(Malton and Clarkson, 2017).
Such research finding could help a university establish schemes such as
peer money mentoring or guidance to help parents of students.
Of course not all HE students are 18 to 24 years old but MAS research embraces all segments of the
population so their resources should serve as a useful toolkit whatever the age
of the student.
Aligning to the national
strategy of financial capability may help students see their money issues as
part of a bigger picture and knowledge of the strategy provide a continuum for
beyond graduation
What is Financial Capability?
If a University decides to deliver money IAG to improve financial
capability, what does this actually mean? There does not seem to be a single
universally accepted definition. Currently the MAS states that improving
financial capability and wellbeing means “addressing all the factors that
influence people’s behaviour around money: skills and knowledge, our attitudes
towards money, motivation to take action, and the accessibility of financial
services”. (The Money Advice Story, 2016)
Orton described a financially capable person as someone who “has the
skills and confidence to be aware of financial opportunities, to know where to
go for help, to make informed choice and to take effective action to improve
their financial well-being” and an
“enabling environment” is one which “promotes the acquisition” of these skills (Orton, 2007). Perhaps financial
capability requires “the use of pedagogical methods that
enable people to practice and gain competency” (Johnson, E. and Sherraden, M. (2007). So, perhaps Financial Capability ought to
be a taught option supplementing a student’s subject of choice. Then again, why
should a university take on responsibility for teaching anything other than the
courses their customers are paying for?
In reality, responsibilities like budgeting guidance are more likely to
fall to university support staff than academics. Birkenmaier cautions that it
is important such staff are “first financially literate themselves”(Birkenmaier, J. and Curley, 2009). “The Case for Financial Literacy” cautions
against the real risks of delivering financial literacy badly(Robson, 2012). Appropriate
competencies should be part of the job descriptions and training of any staff
delivering money support initiatives.
Universities need to decide exactly what money
support services they wish to deliver, resource them appropriately and have
robust signposting and referral strategies to other IAG providers for matters
that fall outside their remit.
The Hardship Brand
It may be time to move away from hardship, crisis and emergency branding.
Though conceivably, these terms add gravitas to the circumstances being
addressed by the interventions and in turn add kudos to the support fund
provider. Like any form of branding the product or service name brings with it
some level of emotional connectivity, positive, negative or even ambivalent
associations (Schmalz and Orth, 2012).
It could be that terms like a “Helping Hand” with money would convey a
better message than “Hardship Funds”. Language that normalises money issues
would arguably help fund applicants recognise how the money is actually meeting
their need. Extreme terminology may infer an undue sense of seriousness, making
a student feel disempowered and believe that without intervention by the
university the money problem could not otherwise be resolved.
In their report Borrowed Years the Money Advice
Trust provided evidence that 18-24 year olds are likely to worry about money
matters, but there was “clear evidence that
a majority of young people are trying to budget and actively manage their
personal finances”(Money Advice Trust, 2016). Given that
“managing money well, is important to young adults – ranking above having a job
they enjoy, keeping healthy and buying a home..”(Malton and Clarkson,
2017), how likely is it that they would identify with
being in hardship or crisis when they need some help? The
language of hardship may play to a young person’s tendency to worry rather than
encourage their positive attempts to manage money well.
Nudges,
short cuts and self knowing
If it is true that there is little evidence that financial education actually alters
behaviours (West, 2012), what
other proven methods might work better?
The Financial Service
Authority’s review of behavioural economics literature concluded that financial
decision-making has stronger links to psychology than money knowledge (de Meza, Irlenbusch
and Reyniers, 2008). Behavioural
economics could be used to nudge students towards improved money management
choices.
The government Behavioural
Insights Team developed the MINDSPACE acronym. This guides that in order to
influence behaviour one must consider the impact of: messenger, incentives,
norms, default, salience, priming, affect, commitment and ego of those they
wish to nudge. Arguably, MINDSPACE
methodology could be too complex an approach for small money support services. A
simpler model called EAST, guiding that interventions be made Easy, Attractive,
Social and Timely - could be more achievable. (Service et al., 2014).
Work done by the MAS and
Ogilvy Change (a specialist behavioural interventions agency) is outlined in
their report “How to use behavioural science to increase the uptake of debt
advice” (Heather, Eleanor
Tatam, Sam Kinloch, Colin Chu, 2017). They suggest 10 top tips to nudge clients into
better service engagement that any small money team could follow.
Alternatively, the answer
may lie in heuristics, “rules of thumb” or mental short cuts to help solve
complex issues. Some useful tips outlined
in “Young Adults and Money Management: behaviours attitudes and useful rules of
thumb” could easily be followed by student money support services (Malton and Clarkson, 2017).
Other research suggests that support services should incorporate “stress
coping skills, and measures to address agency, or self-efficacy into the advice
and support” as they may be important factors effecting money management
behaviours especially when people are under pressure (McNair et al.,
2016).
So it seems a little self
awareness could go a long way. As stated in the article by David de Meza et
al.:
“Financial capability involves knowledge and skills, but attempts to
improve these may not lead to better outcomes. What people choose to know and
what they do with their knowledge may primarily depend on their intrinsic
psychological attributes” (de Meza,
Irlenbusch and Reyniers, 2008).
Is it actually worth the
effort though, if the recipients own intrinsic make-up has a more significant
influence on the outcomes than education? The answer seems to be yes, as having
low financial capability has a detrimental impact on mental health. So attempts
to promote financial capability could have “beneficial spill-overs on
psychological health in addition to the expected benefits associated with
reducing problem debt and welfare dependency and increasing savings and general
skills”(Taylor, Jenkins
and Sacker, 2011).
The government are
calling for universities to “dramatically improve their mental health offering
for students” (Department for Education 2018). So it should be worth attempting
to improve financial capability for the knock-on mental health benefits at
least.
What works?
The government wants
evidence based evaluation in order to understand which interventions have the
“greatest impact on student access, success and progression”(Department
Business for Innovation and Skills, 2014). So how
can this be measured?
Toynbee Hall (a leader in the fight against poverty since Victorian times)
developed a resource known as the MAP tool to help evaluate impact. Agencies use
the tool to monitor the financial wellbeing of the people they help. It is
quite a detailed resource, so a less complicated tool might be better for small
money teams. Citizens Advice developed a simple questionnaire, where clients
score their own financial capability against set measures at the start of an
intervention and then later, to monitor progress. (Grewal, 2017).
Gathering feedback would help with qualitative issues though this is a
short term perspective and alone could make services appear to deliver a “sticking
plaster remedy with no transformative effect”(Meakin, 2013).
Monitoring retention and academic outcomes of students, who receive money
support, could highlight the value of such interventions.
Tapping into the expertise and resources of agencies such as Toynbee
Hall, Citizens Advice and the Money Advice Service would make it much easier
for small university teams to have confidence that they were using well-researched
methods and are in step with current money sector practice.
Incentivising asset building
The ALF was based upon
the model used to calculate means-tested welfare benefits such as Income
Support. Michael Sheridan argued that this minimum income approach to hardship
represents a passive form of social policy that should be rejected as “social
entitlement without [...] greater emphasis on personal responsibility” (Sheridan,
Michael 1991). Instead of linking income levels to well-being, Sheridan
advocated an assets based social policy, focused on "increasing the
capacity of people to attain what they have reason to value". Such
recommendations influenced the UK government which shifted toward asset based
social policy, through the introduction of for example incentivised saving
programmes to encourage financial goal setting.
The Money Advice Trust
recommended that “Government should consider how to create opportunities for
young people to save regularly and to be incentivised to do so “ (Money Advice
Trust, 2016). Research suggests that financial worry and
anxiety is decreased with increased savings levels (Lemos, 2013) and for positive outcome to occur the assets
acquired don’t need to be large (Brynner,
J. and W. Paxton 2001).
The young Dreamers,
Drifters and Planners identified by the MAS (Young Adults’ Financial
Capability) do set money goals but they lack confidence. They focus on short
term planning. They tend to want to keep things simple leading to a
“(potentially false) sense of financial confidence in the present, but coupled
with longer-term fears for financial security”(Harrison, Marchant
and Ansell, 2016).
Young people have “save
to spend” attitudes, along with a sense of the “future being a long way off”
and “passive acquiescence” that things won’t happen to them. With respect to
the personal responsibility that Sheridan advocates, many students “tended to
defer personal responsibility to the future” (Harrison, Marchant
and Ansell, 2016).
So with all this in mind,
university money support should perhaps move away from the income support model
of ALF. Instead they could incentivise engagement with IAG, support asset
building habits, promote income maximisation, encourage saving for short term
goals and longer term financial sustainability.
Conclusion
Universities must review
their money support services and deliver in environments where students are
likely to engage. The focus should be on building money confidence and
knowledge about trusted agencies. Guidance should be provided not only to students,
but also those who influence them such as their families. Near peer mentoring
schemes should be considered and static information resources avoided. Attempts
should be made to promote self knowing and increase insight into how one’s own
intrinsic nature can impact money management choices.
The HE sector must shift
from providing handouts or incomes top ups and instead promote asset building to
help develop the future focus students. Most importantly, Universities need to
build a body of evidence as to what intervention works and to begin to make up
for the failings of the ALF era.
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