Families say they are worse off under changes

Petition says middle income families are being squeezed 

A family has spoken about the impact of recent changes to student funding regulations, claiming their child could be almost £14,000 a year worse off while studying at university.

The student, who achieved strong A-level results and secured a place at a UK university, is among the first cohort to be assessed under the new student award regulations.

The family says their financial planning was based on the previous funding framework, which combined means-tested grants, student loans, parental contributions and personal savings.

However, the new regulations have resulted in a different funding outcome.

A particular concern relates to how parental income is assessed in cases where parents are divorced or separated. 

The family argues that while incomes may be combined for means-testing purposes, the costs of maintaining two separate households are not fully reflected, creating what they describe as an unrealistic assessment of their ability to contribute.

They say the situation highlights wider challenges facing middle-income households, which often earn too much to qualify for maximum financial support but lack the resources to comfortably absorb rising university costs.

Unlike low-income families, they may not qualify for maximum support. Yet unlike high-income families, they often lack significant savings or investments that can be used to fund university education.

As the parent explains, these are families who can meet their day-to-day obligations but are often living month to month after mortgage payments, utility bills, insurance, rates and other household commitments are met. They may appear financially comfortable on paper, but large additional costs can create significant strain.

The family’s experience follows a petition launched to examine the issue around university funding to ensure that no capable Isle of Man student is prevented from accessing higher education, or placed under an unreasonable level of debt, simply because their family falls within the middle-income group. 

The petition says that the current means-tested system can leave middle-income working families in a financial gap. 

It adds: “Families on the lowest incomes may qualify for substantial financial assistance, while families with significant financial resources may be able to meet the costs of higher education themselves.

“In between are families who may earn too much to qualify for meaningful levels of support, but who do not have sufficient disposable income to meet the actual cost of university without significant financial hardship, substantial parental contributions or increased student debt.”

It is calling on the next administration to change the regulations so that where a student’s parents live separately, only one parental income should be taken into account when assessing entitlement to student awards.

It also wants the government to consider introducing a graduate retention scheme to encourage Isle of Man students to return to the Island and contribute to its workforce following higher education. 

Under changes introduced by Tynwald earlier this year, students are either classified as independent or dependent. 

The Department of Education, Sport and Culture has said that previous rules cannot be applied to new applicants. It also says each application is individually verified before funding decisions are made.

Independent students are those who meet criteria which include having no living parent, being 25 or older at the start of the first academic year or is married or in a civil partnership or has been in one. 

Alternatively, the student has been ‘irreconcilably estranged from every financially relevant person’ or been a looked after child under the DHSC in the last 12 months. 

Awards for these students are means tested on the student’s income and their spouse’s, if they have one.

All other students are classified as dependents and their awards are means tested based on the total income of a financially relevant person. 

The regulations say this is a person who has, or previously had, parental responsibility for the student, provided they are not estranged from the student, a guardian or any other person who treats the student as a child of their family.

No more than two financially relevant persons may be considered for any student.