Campaign and petition email responses

Support Students Through the cost-of-living Crisis

The SNP recognises that this is a challenging time for many students.

The Scottish Government have provided £16.8m in hardship funding to colleges and universities for the current academic year to support HE students experiencing financial hardship.

Hardship funding can be used to provide individual students with additional financial support to help towards basic or essential living costs such as; accommodation, household bills or childcare.

The Scottish Government have provided £135m in student support for FE students attending college in the current academic year. Colleges can use these funds flexibly to meet demand across FE student bursaries, childcare and hardship funding.

The Scottish Minister for Further and Higher Education remains in close contact with College and University Principals to urge them to continue to prioritise the allocation of hardship funds to those students most in need, and to take account of the impact of rising energy bills.

The Scottish Government welcomes the opportunity to engage with the views of the sector and they will consider the position of students carefully during the forthcoming emergency budget discussions.

Concerns for students reinforce the urgent need for the UK Government to properly address the cost-of-living crisis.

The SNP in Westminster has been calling on the UK Government to better support students and young people by extending Universal Credit eligibility to students and uplifting the Universal Credit allowance for under 25s in line with over 25s; suspending the Shared Accommodation Rate for under 35s; ensuring that the Universal Credit uplift is reinstated for all, increased to £25-per-week, and extended to all legacy benefits; and removing age discrimination within statutory minimum wage.

Some of my SNP Westminster colleagues have recently participated in a debate on ‘Support for young people with the cost of living’ and raised the issues students and young people face with the cost of living crisis.

The SNP’s then Shadow Chancellor Alison Thewliss raised testimonies from struggling students and young people in her constituency and urged the UK Government for more support, saying: “It is worrying that people are now choosing whether to continue their studies or give up and just work, because they are finding it hard to do both. […] There are choices made in this place that impact people. Many of the people making those decisions and choosing those policy routes never have to live with them.” (18 Oct 2022)