Student Grants Are To Be Replaced With Loans In 'Disgraceful' Move

Hope you like beans on toast. Credit: Flickr/Creative Commons/beckayork/Getty

There's even more bad news for those of you thinking of going to university in the future.

As well as paying £9,000 per year for fees, which could also be set to rise again this year. The government has now scrapped student maintenance grants and replaced them with loans.

The old system allowed students from families who earned less than £42,620 a year to apply for a grant to help with living costs. The size of his grant was dependent on how much the family earned, up to a maximum grant of £3,387 a year for families who earned less than £25000. Under the new system, students will have access to more money, but this will be in the form of a loan, which must be paid back once a graduate earns £21,000 a year or more.

Credit: PA

This is clearly going to hit those from poorer backgrounds hardest and definitely has the potential to put people off going to university all together, because, let's face it who wants to get themselves into that much debt at such a young age? As someone who was lucky enough to receive maintenance grants, I can honestly tell you they were a godsend.

The National Union of Students vice president, Sorana Vieru, said on BBC Breakfast: "It's a disgraceful change that basically punishes poorer students simply for being poor, so they have to take a bigger loan than those students from privileged backgrounds."

The new plans were announced by the super-popular, former chancellor George Osborne.

On the bright side, you'll probably be dead before you manage to pay it all back anyway.

Words Claire Reid