Overstretched and Overdrawn

A survey of student hardship “Overstretched and Overdrawn”, conducted by National Union of Students Scotland gives us an overlook at the impact of the economic climate on students who are forced to work in addition to be able to afford the costs of living. The report shows the amount of students working long hours to try to deal with their commercial debts, more than 70 per cent of students work more than recommended 10 hours a week. We are given information on the proportion of different types of debt that students are tied up with for example commercial debt and student loan. Commercial debt applies to more than half of the surveyed students and two thirds of students own money to family and friends. Young students are less concerned about being in debt than mature students where students from poor background are more afraid of commercial debt that those from better background. The number of working students reaches more than 50 per cent of surveyed students, with more than 70 per cent of them working longer hours during term-time than the recommended 10 hours a week. Working students are more likely to be those with commercial debt. The report shows that the Government is concerned about student debt. They provide the grant to the very poorest students and support student parents but the amount of support provided is limited and the solution of moving from loans to grants is not enough.

Purpose
The aim of this report is to bring awareness of the raising debt problem among young people. Show what kind of financial difficulties young people meet on their way to reach their goal of better life and in some cases their choice is not to study to avoid those financial problems.

Reader
The target audients of this report would be mainly people involved with NUS therefore their employees who would be interested in their work output as well as government and other institutions who could gain from information and statistics shown in the report.

Effectiveness