'Newstart' or 'Stop-Start'? the Implications of Recent Welfare Reforms on Undergraduate Students Who Are Sole Parents

This article discusses the implications of recent income support payment changes for sole-parented families in Australia, and in particular, their capacity to access tertiary education. The government's program to reduce welfare benefit payments to sole-parented families already at high risk of economic disadvantage and social marginalization threatened a first-year sole-parent attempting to complete a 4 year university study program. When sole-parents had not acted to continue their education before the specified cut-off period, the impeding financial change in effect resulted in the sole-parent student either withdrawing from their current studies or, worse still, never enrolling in the first place as they see further study as an improbable dream. This policy change created clear tensions for universities. First, it weakened the opportunity for universities to fulfill one of their major responsibilities: to recruit and educate people who are educationally, economically, and socially disadvantaged; second, it limited the ability of universities to meet the requirements placed on them by the government to improve access, participation, retention, and success rates for students from lower socioeconomic status; and third, it threatened the commitment and capacity of particular departments within universities, such as human services, nursing, and social work to develop next generations of effective helping professionals. Universities Australia (a body representing Australia's largest 39 universities) recommended that the Australian Government maintain a system that enables any Australian who is capable of studying at university to do so. It is hoped the government heeds this recommendation to protect the current and future education prospects of those students for reasons of equity and fairness, and to keep alive the prospects of a smarter Australia.