Apart from your common or garden fresh from school full time student, there are increasing numbers of mature students applying for hardship grants, many of whom do not receive the TSG. Some of these receive better treatment than others. Solo parents with dependent children who are on the DPB have been receiving on average $16 to $25 hardship grant this year (although they don't get the TSG). However, the increasing number of mature students returning to full time study after several years in the work force are not exactly receiving red carpet treatment. It is the Education Dept's opinion that these students are expected to have saved enough from their brief working life to support themselves through any course of study they may wish to undertake.

SHG Application Changes

There have been minor changes to last year's application form: students may now apply for hardship at the same time as they apply for the TSG (although not many students have taken advantage of this, mainly because they do not know their exact vacation earnings), and there is now provision for detailing vacation expenditure. One change that was pushed for by the University bursaries people was moving the cut-off date for student ages from February 1 to sometime in June. The Education Department rejected this suggestion emphatically. The cut-off date is so rigid that a student who turned twenty on February 2 this year will be considered 19 years old for the entire academic year. This of course means that students coming to university straight from school could very well have graduated before they are considered by the Department to be no longer dependent on their parents.

Parental Support a Farce

Under 20 students will know that their parents are expected to match the $23 TSG dollar for dollar. Spread over the 37 week academic year this adds up to the modest sum of $851 that your parents are expected to hand over without a backward glance. Surprise, surprise, according to the bursary clerks interviewing applicants for hardship grants, under 10% of students under 20 years receive any kind of regular financial support from their parents. Perhaps the most important fact of student financial life is that up to half those students applying for hardship this year actually ran out of money before the end of the academic year in 1980. The most popular time for running out of money was early to mid October, just before final exams, adding financial worries to their other emotional stresses. Most of these students borrowed money from parents and friends (on average $200), money which was later repaid out of vacation earnings. "Repayment of loans incurred through hardship the previous year" looks like becoming a regular vacation expense on hardship application forms in the future.

If you've picked up your application form from the bursaries offices over in 32 Kelburn Parade or from the Registry, you will have dazzled your brain by reading the big "scare sheet", the one that says you aren't allowed to exist if you have to pay to do so. Don't be put off by this list. The big thing to remember is that it is not a change in the Education Department's criteria for awarding hardship grants. It is 'merely' a clarification by the Department of the way they assess a hardship claim, and was supplied at the request of the University bursaries people, who were previously completely in the dark about the Department's expectations. Even if we don't like them, at least we now know what they are. You should not let this list scare you off, and you should still claim for items on that list which you can prove (ie with documentation) to be part of your legitimate expenses for the coming academic year.

Enrolment Fees

If you've got as far as applying for a hardship grant, then the chances are fairly good that for you enrolment was a major hurdle. Back in the good old days when a fees grant was a fees bursary and meant what it said (prior to 1980), the Students Association fee was the only enrolment expense for most students. However, since the fees grant now only covers part of tuition fees, for a lot of students it probably seemed a little rough that after paying 25% of tuition fees (or more). they had to hand over $51 to the Student's Association. Many students regard the Studass fee as an imposition, a waste of money - largely because they are unaware of the benefits that come back to them through the payment of the fee.

Where your $51 goes:

$14 to the Studass General Account. This pays for the general operation of the Students Association, wages, honoraria, stationery, capping, festivals, campaigns etc. Approximately $6000 goes to cultural clubs, and levies to NZUSA and NZSAC are paid from this account. (This money helped pay for Slick Stage, Topp Twins, Top Scientists and Jean-Paul Bell over Orientation for example).

$9.00 to Student Union Building fund. This fund is the reason you have a Union Building and a Recreation Centre to begin with.

$16.50 to the Union Building Maintenance Fund. Both this and the previous fund are controlled by the university. The maintenance fund pays for the upkeep of Union facilities, repairs, cleaning etc.

$2.00 to the Studass Trust. A trust company which holds and invests Studass money. It provides most of the backing for Victoria Book Centre and Victoria Catering Co.

$4.50 to the Sports Council. Approximately two thirds of this money goes in sports club grants, the rest to administration, travel subsidies to sports tournaments, and a levy to NZ Universities Sports Union.

$4.20 to Publications Board. This money represents about half the cost of producing this newspaper. The rest of the cost of Salient, and total cost of Handbook, is met by advertising and commercial typesetting revenue.

Finally, 80c to the Radio Board to be used for Radio Active, your own radio station, which, like Salient, supplements its income from advertising.

By now you may have got the idea that it is very difficult to avoid getting some return on your Studass fee. Everyone uses the Union Building at least once a year, because they have to go there to enrol. Even those students applying to have their Studass Fee waived (about 60 this year), are using the Studass secretary's valuable time to have their applications processed and considered. Failing all else, most people at some time during the year will need a shot of caffeine from their own catering company, or will buy some (if not all) of their textbooks from their own bookshop. You are getting a return on your fee right now by reading this newspaper, and you get one by tuning into Radio Active. So if you want real value for you $51.00 it is there for the taking; all you have to do is get involved in some small way with student life on or off campus.

Jessica Wilson