Welsh Tories to subsidise Landlords rather than Students.

 The Student vote or maybe the parents of students vote is probably not be a major issue in the Assembly Elections but it will loom large.

The  Student funding  cam be costly to a Party  as the LibDems found out when they broke a a pledge not to scrap the Students grant which they promptly did so.

Students from Wales currently pay only £3,810 towards their fees wherever they study in the UK.  

 
But there are  concern from some critics that tuition fee subsidies for Welsh students benefit universities in England.
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Students from Wales currently pay "only" £3,810 towards their fees wherever they study in the UK. 

The Welsh government supports anything above that up to £5,190 a year which the Tories said was "unsustainable" at an annual £229m cost to taxpayers.

Now the Welsh Conservatives at least realise that even they have to offer something different  to the way their colleagues in England.

 
According to the BBC

 Radical plans to scrap tuition fee subsidies and pay half of students' rent instead have been announced by the Welsh Conservatives.

The party said its £75m-a-year plans help with living costs and were fairer.
Their argument is accommodation costs often take a chunk out of a student's maintenance loan and the plan would help free up funds for their education.

It may not be popular with Students but Landlords wil be Happy with it.

Education Minister Huw Lewis has suggested Labour would continue to subsidise tuition fees if the party won the election in May, but hinted the subsidies may be means-tested.

Plaid Cymru has said it would shift to a system where graduates who work in Wales would get £6,000 a year of their tuition fee debts written off.

The Welsh Liberal Democrats have said they would replace tuition fee subsidies with maintenance grants for students and more direct help for cash-strapped universities.

For some reason Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies will unveil his party's rent support pledge in a speech at Exeter University later today.

So he announcing  Today that he's planning to subsidise  Landlords in England.

 So maybe Andrew RT Davies will just do a check of the average rent there.

The Tories claim  average rental costs in Wales for students were around £118 a week, meaning the average student would receive £59 a week in rent subsidy. 
 

The money would be paid wherever in a UK the student chooses to go to university.
 
So maybe the Tories need to look at the costs  or at least make sure Landlords use this simply to put up their rents in Wales .believing the Welsh Government will pay for part of it.


30 years ago I received not only the basic grant but got more because of my age and still struggled with an overdraft.

So how students manage Today  is a miracle to me  and  the  prospect of paying of future debts must be worrying.

 Faced with limited funds it seems that Plaid has the best on offer something that can benefit Wales as well as Students .

Indeed it could help to reverse the "Brain Drain " from Wales as students going to Oxbridge and other Non-Welsh Universities  fail to return.

We need to keep out best here and  this means not only making it financially viable  for Students but also but raising the profile of Welsh Universities and making them attractive to home grown students , whilst benefiting from the influx of Students from outside, 

Even if that means they stay and become Liberal Democrat Councillors or even AMs for instance.