STUDENT POVERTY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BALLARAT

Introduction The 1990s saw a resurgence of interest in the issue of poverty -- an issue which has simmered since major publications and reports gained public attention in the 1970s (e.g. Frankel 1970; Henderson, Harcourt & Harper 1970; Wedderburn 1974; Young 1974; Commission of Inquiry into Poverty 1975; Henderson 1975). What we have witnessed over the past 25 years is a changing focus on those groups of society that are at particular risk of poverty. There is now a shift in interest and attention from the aged, sole parents, large families and children, to the working poor, self-employed poor, the non-aged single and even the educated poor (Saunders & Matheson 1992; Maas 1995; Bradbury 1996; Brown 1996; Cheal 1996; Buchanan & Watson 1997; Cartwright 1997; Cass 1997; Dollery & Fletcher 1997; Eardley & Bradbury 1997; Shaver 1997). Calculation of social wage and consumption patterns appears to remove the aged and sole parents from the most disadvantaged poor. We thus have clues that there are new poor: relatively young, single, possibly working, and educated. This profile fits a category that is yet not central to any discourse on poverty in Australia. Very few scholars mention students as an identifiable group of poor. In Australia the Social Security Review in 1986 claimed that, as a group, young people in private rental accommodation were caught in a poverty trap. Sydney students typically spent two thirds of their income on rent (McShane 1990: 34). Burbidge and Winter (1996: 99) argued that `the incidence of poverty in particular groups such as public tenants, students and the aged has not been recognised'. Student poverty in the higher education sector is a relatively unexplored phenomenon. The Summary Report on Equity in Higher Education (Department of Education Employment & Training 1993a) concentrated on the socio-economic status of students on entry to study, but did not address equity issues while the students were studying. There are, however, sufficient anecdotal evidence regarding student poverty, discontinuation data relating to student financial problems, and data regarding increased assistance to students in financial difficulty to warrant further investigation in this area. Although university students are over-proportionally from professional and managerial families (Simpson 1987; Birrell & Dobson 1997) government policy in the higher education sector has emphasised social justice and equity and has been generally successful in increasing the total number of students from poorer and less educated backgrounds (Department of Education Employment & Training 1993b). However, Birrell and Dobson (1997: 52) questioned whether students from low socio-economic backgrounds can surmount the financial hurdles of tertiary education. The proportion of students receiving means-tested income support declined in the decade 1975-1985 from almost 70% to less than 40% (McShane 1990:31). This has occurred because of changing government policy in which a model of free education for all has increasingly been replaced by one which requires that people pay for their education. Chapman's review of Austudy in 1992 claimed that lack of financial resources was an important factor affecting students' decisions to enter into or continue with their tertiary studies. Birrell and Dobson were concerned about the lack of access to Austudy and the HECS debt that became `a financial black hole for young people aspiring to attend university who do not come from well-off families' (1997: 56). In a country with a relatively high rate of household debt, more students are now obliged to use credit to pay for their education. The University of Ballarat (University of Ballarat Student Counselling Services 1997) and The University of Melbourne (Melbourne Uni News 1995) have reported a significant increase in demand for student loans. The Ballarat studies In this paper we present the findings of two research projects at the University of Ballarat, a small `stand alone' university (recently integrated with two TAFE colleges) 110 kilometres west of Melbourne. …