It’s a financially difficult time for students.
- The ongoing debate on how to fund the cost of higher education is no closer to a conclusion
- Coping with the daily cost of living, especially with the volatile value of the £ over Brexit
- Loans running out and the abolition of the maintenance grant
- Most universities try to deter students from having a job while studying
All of these and more leads to students having to juggle financial commitments. Many students struggle to pay their rent. But for one university, that means some severe academic sanctions.
Students Denied Academic Access
It recently emerged that students from University of Liverpool are having academic sanctions imposed for failure to pay their financial commitments. 687 suffered sanctions in the last academic year. They apply to students in Halls of Residence that the university owns. The most common sanction imposed is denial of library services. Some claim a denial of access to university WiFi from their own devices and even suspension of their login details for university computers. Further, some students claim they have had coursework and exam results withheld. But overdue rent is not the only offence for which students are being punished. Some claim they had exam results withheld after failing to pay on time for a replacement key for their room.
The Results of Such Sanctions
It is estimated that 1/6th of students in halls of residence at University of Liverpool have suffered academic sanctions. This is deeply concerning as it was reported that these students were 13% less likely to progress to the next year and twice as likely to need to resit exams to progress to their second year. Furthermore, some students report mental illness brought on by the stressed of the sanctions and deep concerns about their academic performance. It’s been reported that such students include those who experienced loan delays due to acquiring a place through clearing and the loan’s company failing to allocate their money on time.
In another case, there was a processing error for a student’s direct debit and after the money failed to clear on the allotted day, they were denied access to university services. This was no fault of the student.
Is Liverpool an Isolated Case?
In short, the answer is no. Liverpool is not the only university to impose academic sanctions for financial misdemeanours – most do. However, Liverpool’s rate of imposing such sanctions is much higher than the national average of 2%; (1/6th works out around 17%).
The Guild of Students pointed out that Liverpool has one of the most expensive halls of residence rents in the UK and the Guild is currently campaigning for the university to cut them to reduce the high number of defaulting students and dropouts.