91Èȱ¬

The young girl had an English accent and wanted to know what I was doing standing in the middle of the student union bar in Cardiff ... without a drink in my hand.

I was there, I said, to film a piece on plans to scrap tuition fee grants for all Welsh students who choose to stay and study in Wales. Before I could go any further, she jumped in. About bl**dy time, she said. She'd only just found out, by accident, that her mate from Abergavenny was getting over £1900 that she wasn't "just because he was from Wales and I'm not. How's that right?"

They were studying the same course, doing the same work. In fact she did rather more work than he did. They sat next to each other in lecture theatres, paid the same for course books and for drinks - so why did he deserve the money and she didn't?

Her mate from Abergavenny checked first whether he'd lose out. Wise boy. Having worked out that he wouldn't - he'd be long gone by the time top-up fees came in - he felt he had to agree that targeting the money would make more sense. He doubted whether he'd qualify for a grant in future. If he hadn't been given his share though, he would have missed it.

Would he still have gone to university? Maybe but he wasn't sure. Maybe he would have been tempted to go for a cheaper course, somewhere other than Cardiff.

I've no idea whether he's spotted today's statement by the Education Minister Jane Hutt. The bottom line is that Tuition Fee Grants are on their way out from 2010-2011 and that the "remodelled" system puts a stop to free something for everyone. In future around a third of Welsh students, those from families with the lowest incomes, will get the full whack of a £5000 learning grant per year. Students from poorer backgrounds in Wales we're told, will do better than in England. The Assembly Government has not only upped the grant but upped the household income threshold for grants by £10,000. Maybe the lad from Abergavenny would squeeze in after all.

Just over a third will get something, while just under a third will get no learning grant at all. Everyone gets £1500 wiped off their debt. That will cost the Assembly Government some £13 million. Where has that come from? The Finance Minister 'found it', presumably down the back of the Assembly's leather sofas or in the mysterious pot of non-cash.

There will be golden hello schemes for some graduates who want to live and work in Wales. They'll have to fight it out over no more than £1 million put by for that. So if the little brother or sister from Abergavenny come looking for financial incentives to stay in Wales to study in a few years' time, they'll have to look long and hard.

In fact they'll have to look at the big picture. They may not get the kind of money their big brother got but the Higher Education sector will be getting £31million of "newly directed" money (directed from students' pockets say the Liberal Democrats) so at least, as one voice at the very heart of the decision to change the system put it, there's a chance there'll be universities and colleges worth going to in Wales.

What do you mean a brain drain he barked? Maybe ... but what's the point in keeping our best brains here if we've nowhere worth teaching them?

Though hang on, that full figure of £31million won't be squeezed out of the system until 2015-16 and by then the support trumpeted today for "Assembly Government priorities, such as the University of the Heads of the Valleys and the Coleg Ffederal" won't be in the gift of this government at all.

Come to think of it, by then it won't be in the gift of the next government either. It'll be up to the government after that ... and that's a long way away.

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