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Student loans as symbolic violence
Abstract
This paper asks whether Bourdieu’s notion of symbolic violence is a helpful lens through which to view student loan systems. Symbolic violence occurs when two unequal agents unconsciously conspire in the oppression of the less empowered agent, thus reinforcing and legitimating existing stratifications. Using England as a case study, we draw on in-depth interviews with 74 graduating students at two types of university. Half of the interviewees were part of a lower fees (pre-2012 entry) cohort and half were part of a higher fees (2012 entry) cohort. Students share ways in which the loan system affects their psychological stability and their imagined futures. We argue that symbolic violence (a) is encoded in public discourses of student borrowing; (b) becomes more prominent as systems move towards higher fees, regardless of forecast total repayment levels; and (c) is experienced differently by different types of students.
... Specifically, the objectives are: (1) to identify the objective conditions of students and parents as representatives of learners at SDN X, (2) to identify the objective conditions of teachers as educational agents at SDN X, and (3) to analyze the forms of symbolic violence reproduced in integrative thematic learning at SDN X. Previous studies on the reproduction of symbolic violence have been extensively conducted by researchers such as (Pitaloka & Wahyudi, 2017;Amirulloh, 2018;Putri & Pribadi, 2021;Saputra, 2020;Mazidah, 2021;Reichelt et al., 2019;Suardi et al., 2020;Harris et al., 2021). However, a series of previous studies still dwell on a too broad scope, so it has not been shown. ...
... Based on the data obtained, most students come from lower-middleclass family backgrounds. This percentage is derived from the parental income data as follows: Status embedding based on economic relations, according to Pierre Bourdeu, is referred to as the accumulation of economic capital (Harris et al., 2021). The lack of accumulation of students' economic capital in education is related to their inability to reach the facilities needed in thematic education. ...
... In his work with Passeron, Pierre Bourdieu states that agents can occupy a number of spaces if agents can accumulate the types of capital they have according to the struggles in the arena (Pierre & Passeron, 1990). According to Pierre Bourdeu, the embedding of status based on economic relations is referred to as the accumulation of economic capital (Harris et al., 2021). Bourdieu's analogy of the correlation of fixed capital synthesizes economic capital as a reinforcement for the legitimacy of power in social practice (Bourdieu, 1986). ...
Integrative thematic education has contributed to the reproduction of symbolic violence through the habitus of the dominant class. This happens because not all agents have the appropriate capital and habitus. This research aims to identify the capital of parents as a representation of learners and teachers as teaching agents. The method used is qualitative with Pierre Bourdieu's generative structuralism approach. Data collection techniques include observation, interview, and documentation. Bourdieu's theory of reproduction and symbolic violence was used as an analytical tool. The results show that popular class students are less able to adjust the habitus recognized in integrative thematic education, so their practices are considered less appropriate. This is because their parents do not have enough capital accumulation to pass on the right habitus in education. In contrast, petty bourgeois class students who have sufficient capital and habitus are considered more appropriate so they rarely experience symbolic violence. Symbolic violence is also experienced by other popular class agents, such as senior teachers who have less cultural capital than junior teachers. Despite these challenges, integrative thematic education is still practiced because it has become a doxa-an established belief-without considering the cultural diversity of learners in rural areas.
Purpose
Financial difficulties are associated with poor student mental health, although the 2012 tuition fees increase for British students had little impact on student mental health in the first two years at university. This study aims to examine the mental health of British graduates before and after this fees increase to determine the impact on mental health several years after graduation.
Design/methodology/approach
We conducted an online cohort study with 327 British students who started university before and after the 2012 fees increase. Participants completed measures of current economic hardship and symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, general mental health and suicidality. Multiple regression was used to examine the impact of cohort (pre- and post-2012 fees increase), tuition fees amount and economic hardship on mental health.
Findings
Greater economic hardship was positively correlated with all mental health variables. Starting university after the fees increased and/or paying greater fees was associated with increased depression, anxiety, stress and suicidality, with little impact on general mental health. When economic hardship was covaried, the strength of cohort effects reduced but remained significant.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to show that the 2012 tuition fees increase for British students increased depression, anxiety, stress and suicidality in graduates many years after graduation, owing to additional financial strain.
The increasing use of student’s loans schemes to finance higher education is currently a global concern. It fuels access to higher education mostly to children from low-income families which ultimately strengthen equitable human capital growth. However, due to the increasing demand for higher education coupled with lower budget, many governments especially those in developing Countries fail to accomplish this task adequately. This study therefore, thought to assess students views on the amount of loan allocated and status of their survival in Tanzania Higher education Institutions. The aim is to see whether the received loan amount sufficiently cover their degree program cost, and if not, what are survival mechanisms are they make to supplement the discrepancy. The cross-sectional survey of 480 loans beneficiaries was adopted to collect data from four sampled universities. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings revealed that, due to the increasing trends of loans applicants’ and lower government budget, many students are allocated lesser amount of loan which eventually hinder their survival. As such others decide to engage on informal income generating activities which ultimately affect their academic progress. This study recommends on increased amount of loans allocation to students, as long as what they receive will be paid it back if adequate repayment strategies a put in place.
Purpose
This study analyzed the impact on the persistence of Chilean university students who had received a government-guaranteed loan (CAE).
Design/methodology/approach
Using academic and administrative data from 2016 to 2019, provided by 11 Chilean universities, a discrete-time survival model was constructed. The model was based on data of 5,276 students in the 2016 cohort and included sociodemographic variables, academic background prior to entering university and academic performance once in university. As a robustness check of our results to observable confounding, the analysis was repeated using a control group constructed using propensity score matching (PSM).
Findings
The results reveal that students who receive a bank loan (CAE) were more likely to remain in undergraduate studies for at least the first two years of university, as opposed to their peers who did not receive financial aid. In addition, they show the importance of academic performance in retention.
Originality/value
The article advances in the identification of the impact of bank loans on permanence. Although previous research has evaluated the impact of the CAE, it has been conducted on small samples of students. These studies also lacked student records associated with their academic performance at the university. The present research overcomes both weaknesses, allowing us to estimate the impact of the CAE on a larger population of students that is representative of the system.
This article, through phenomenographic research methodology explores mature male students' experiences of financial barriers in English universities 1, further exacerbated by factors of class, race and age. Up until now, phenomenography has mainly been used in educational research, exploring students' conceptions of learning. This study employs phenomenography to explore student experiences in different contexts. The study provides first-hand insights into the experiences of mature male students and the impact of financial barriers on them as there is limited literature, with the exception of a few researchers (Burke, 2009; Egerton, 2001; Gannon, 2014; Laming et al. , 2019) on the experiences of mature male students. The voices of mature male students in specific contexts, as in the case of English universities, have been marginalised owing to multiple, intersecting factors. In drawing qualitative data from 15 mature male students studying at three Russell Group universities, this study offers important insights from students' perspectives on governmental and institutional fees and funding structures where a) the day-to-day living cost takes precedence over deferred debt of tuition fees, and b) financial challenges lead to further academic and social challenges. By raising awareness that education can be a transformative experience only when financial challenges are addressed, this study proposes small-scale interventions at the institutional level to enhance mature male students' university experiences.
Millions of student loan borrowers worry about their loan repayments. Previous research has largely focused on the impact of student loan debt on post-college outcomes, ignoring the psychological aspects, especially student loan repayment worry (SLRW). This study, utilizing data from the 2018 National Financial Capability Survey (n=2326), explored the determinants of SLRW and the potential moderating role of coping resources on the relationship between medical and financial hardship and SLRW.
Prior to 2017, maladministration, unfunded and underfunded students, misalignment with student needs, high non-completion rates and a violent student debt crisis characterised South Africa’s student financial aid scheme, and triggered annual unrest across the higher education (HE) sector. Following a wave of protests by the #FeesMustFall movement and widespread calls for a free decolonised HE, in 2017, the South African government replaced its 26 year old income-contingent student loan scheme with a grant-based free HE education policy for poor and working-class students. While the policy intervention restored relative stability across the sector, several fault lines in the student funding policy remain. In this article, drawing on a combination of qualitative policy document analysis and descriptive statistics, we employ Carol Bacchi “what’s the problem represented to be?” (WPR) approach to analyse recent student funding policy developments in South African HE. We employ the WPR approach to (a) direct attention to the significance of reflecting on how the HE student funding problem has been constituted and framed in policy proposals, and (b) challenge the dominant “problem solving” paradigm (inherent in mainstream policy propositions) by drawing attention to benefits of an alternative “problem-questioning” approach to the country’s pursuit for a just and equitable student funding model. We then make some recommendations on how South African HE policymakers can avoid the pitfalls of well-meaning HE funding policies turning into instruments for creating and reproducing the very disparities they are meant to ameliorate.
In 2012, the UK government introduced the National Scholarship Programme - a scheme that aimed to ensure that young people from families with low household incomes would not be discouraged from entry into higher education by increases in tuition fees. Drawing on longitudinal evidence in the form of eighty semi-structured interviews conducted in an English Red Brick University over a three-year period, this paper uses Jenkins’ work on social identification to examine the process es by which these post-2012 undergraduates used and experienced the financial support made available to them as part of the Programme. The paper explores how the initially categorical label associated with being a student in receipt of financial assistance was variously understood and experienced as they moved through their degree. Not only did the additional finance allow students to avoid excessive part-time work, recipients also felt increasingly valued by the institution when they began to recognise how their financial circumstances differed from their peers, and that the university had made this provision for them. It remains to be seen whether these, more intangible, benefits of non- repayable financial support will transfer to the system of ‘enhanced’ loans that have subsequently replaced maintenance grants and the National Scholarship Programme.
A hallmark of recent higher education policy in developed economies is the move towards quasi-markets involving greater student choice and provider competition, underpinned by cost-sharing policies. This paper examines the idealizations and illusions of student choice and marketization in higher education policy in England, although the overall conclusions have relevance for other countries whose higher education systems are shaped by neoliberal thinking. First, it charts the evolution of the student-choice rationale through an analysis of government commissioned reports, white papers, and legislation, focusing on policy rhetoric and the purported benefits of increasing student choice and provider competition. Second, the paper tests the predictions advanced by the student-choice rationale—increased and wider access, improved institutional quality, and greater provider responsiveness to the labour market—and finds them largely not met. Finally, the paper explores how conceptual deficiencies in the student-choice model explain why the idealization of student choice has largely proved illusionary. Government officials have narrowly conceptualized students as rational calculators primarily weighing the economic costs and benefits of higher education and the relative quality of institutions and programs. There is little awareness that student choices are shaped by several other factors as well and that these vary considerably by social background. The paper concludes that students’ choices are socially constrained and stratified, reproducing and legitimating social inequality.
Measures that economise education are typically accompanied by discourses that prime society for change by framing the policy in individualistic and consumeristic terms. This article explores the emergence of ‘value for money’ (VfM) discourses in the English higher education sector. Using Bourdieu’s thinking tools, we explore how VfM is conceptualised by final year undergraduates paying different levels of ‘headline’ tuition fees at a Russell Group and a Post-92 university. Unsurprisingly, we find qualitative evidence of an increase in VfM negativity as fees rise. However, this does not distribute evenly across different groups of students. At both institutions, undergraduates approach VfM in complex and unexpected ways, drawing on different capitals and often pushing back against dominant discourses. A key finding is that many students report high levels of satisfaction with their institution, course and teaching, while simultaneously expressing VfM negativity because they feel tuition fees are too high.
The systemic necessity to take on ever more unsecured credit simply to go about the business of everyday life in a financialized society is still positioned as a personal choice rather than an unavoidable means of survival. In our contribution to this volume, we offer a qualitative analysis of the lived experiences of indebted lives in the context of precarious temporary employment in the UK, in order to examine the extent to which young people are ‘governed’ by debt. Rather than total discipline, we demonstrate empirically how young people actively reject, resist and negotiate the debts that they undertake, challenging a normative framing of debt that seeks to condemn the moral character of struggling debtors. As well as this empirical work, our theoretical contribution here is to interpret this data in terms of what we consider to be the temporal dynamics of indebtedness, which result in living ‘deferred lives’.
This paper explores how the various pressures of finance, employability and part-time work are experienced by undergraduates studying in an English Red Brick University. Drawing on the results of a 3-year qualitative study that followed 40 students throughout their 3 years of studies (n₁ = 40, n₂ = 40, n₃ = 38, ntotal = 118), the paper details three dimensions by which students understood their part-time employment experiences: the characteristics of employment types; motivations for employment and the challenges of shaping their employment experiences around their studies. It is argued that the current shortfalls in the student budget and the pressures of the employability agenda may actually serve to further disadvantage the lower income groups in the form of a ‘double deficit’. Not only are discrepancies between income and expenditure likely to mean that additional monies are necessary to study for a degree, the resulting need for part-time employment is also likely to constrain both degree outcome and capacity to enhance skills necessary for ‘employability’.
