

For many of us, the idea of not having a family to depend on is unimaginable.

But for some young adults studying at university, this is their everyday reality. The struggles they face go beyond lacking support and unconditional love – they can be penalised by the student loan system for their estrangement.

The size of the student loan given to young adults aged 18-24 is based on the household income of their biological or adoptive parents. Although it doesn’t make this explicit, the government expects parents to top up the loan. Yet there is no legal statute for young adults to claim the finance it is expected they should receive from family. This places them at the mercy of familial goodwill to provide it.

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Not all young adults are so lucky as to have good family relationships, and there are a number of reasons that students may not have a supportive set of relatives as they move into adulthood. For example, students may experience LGBT+ family rejection, disownment after attempts to force them into marriage, or they may have an unaccepting step-parent. They may have experienced undisclosed abuse or neglect.

While some faltering family relationships are picked up by local authorities, others are not. Homelessness, formal or informal, can the result, and young adults may fall into the care of third sector organisations or onto the sofas of understanding friends.

These students are increasingly referred to as “estranged”, and have recognised disadvantages. Forthcoming research from Sheffield Hallam University and the Stand Alone charity indicates that studying with family support bolsters student success and brings emotional and financial advantages.

But finance is the most recognised barrier to access for students – particularly those who are estranged. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, they are totally reliant on the statutory loan. This is why it is particularly troubling that the Student Loans Company has failed to consider the financial vulnerabilities of these students while carrying out its recent fraud investigation.

We understand that more than half of a 150-strong random sample of

estranged young people had the third instalment of their statutory funding removed, while they were asked to provide further evidence that they didn’t have a dependent family relationship. Evidence from students who have taken part in the exercise shows that social media interactions were monitored to verify their claims.

Starving estranged students of funding shows a lack of understanding of their financial vulnerabilities. Some became homeless as a result of the withholding of their termly maintenance loan payment.

Furthermore, monitoring social media to determine family relationships, without knowledge or consent, is an invasion of privacy. Determining what a dependent and supportive relationship looks like is not as simple as establishing whether the young person is in contact with their family or not. Experts in the area of family relationships would advocate that a young person can still be estranged, even if they post sparse and occasional comments on a family member’s Facebook wall.

Policymakers must take a more understanding attitude towards these students. The forthcoming 18+ education fee review should assess how finance works for young people who do not have family support. At the very least, it should ensure they are not starved of instalments of their funding. Perhaps it should also consider what happens when a family withholds their contribution of the funding.

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Furthermore, is it right that government assumes that family will help over the summer period and awards a loan that is only fit to last through term time? Surely students who lack this should be entitled to benefit over those months. The Scottish government has made excellent progress in supporting care-experienced students with a summertime bursary. Could this not be replicated across the UK, to include estranged young people and ensure that no student is homeless or at risk over June, July and August?

On a more fundamental level, there needs to be more recognition

that family doesn’t always function as we might imagine it should for young people. It’s not only young people leaving the care system who have poor and unsupportive family relationships.

It’s easier to ignore this fact, and make policy with the imagined

family in mind. However, social mobility initiatives will continue to fail

one of the most vulnerable groups of students if this willing blindness continues.

Becca Bland is chief executive of Stand Alone.



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