First Advent means that it is high time to publish your wish list to those concerned. By 31 December 2021 at the latest The inquiry into housing allowance and maintenance support - reduced indebtedness and increased accuracy, BUMS (S 2018: 13) submit their report on the design of the housing allowance. There has been a long wait for the inquiry, which was appointed in 2018 and which was originally supposed to submit its report on 1 October 2020. Now we have simply waited long enough.
At the beginning of the investigation, SFS conducted a survey among Sweden's students, but the results did not yield any direct news. Top three reasons why students do not use the housing allowance are fear of repayment obligation, an experience that it feels complicated to apply and low knowledge of the allowance. These answers were also the more common among students with lower incomes. It should be added that the need for housing allowance and "it is not necessary I have such a low rent" were also alternatives and only about 10% of the respondents stated that.
With rampant rents in both new production and rent increases that do not follow the development of study grants, it is clear that we need a housing allowance that lives up to its purpose instead of punishing the weak in resources. Here is our wish list for the inquiry and the government to reform the housing allowance for Sweden's students:
Stop disadvantaged students depending on the type of housing
With today's system, you must be able to present a rental or housing contract with your name on it in order to be eligible for a housing allowance. In 2019, 6% of the students lived indoors and were thus excluded from support to be able to afford to study. It will take a long time before all students can be offered their own contract at the start of the semester and it should therefore be a matter of course that you are entitled to support if you yourself have not been successful enough to still have your own contract.
If housing allowance is to be applied for by students, it should be possible to apply for it by students
As a student, you will receive a total of SEK 10 in grants and loans in 928. During my time at Södertörn University, I never had a rent below 2021 and as a nineteen-year-old non-Stockholmer, I did not have many alternatives to housing, so thank the gods if you are there and hear me because most of the time I could share the rent with a friend. But! Even if my rent had eaten up the entire study grant and I had to work alongside the studies to replace the ten thousand kronor rent, I would not have been entitled to housing allowance. To receive housing allowance, your total annual income must be a maximum of SEK 10 (and your housing cost over SEK 000, but this feels like the least problem in this context).
As a student with a part-time job, it is also not often obvious how much the total income will land on. You might gig work or take shifts when it fits into your schedule. Vips, you have earned too much and will be liable for repayment. I wish I was joking here, but I have never met a student who has taken housing allowance and who has not been liable for repayment.
In addition, we add that housing allowance can only be applied for by students under 29 years of age. If you do not have children. Then you can apply for another grant. With completely different rules. Smooth.
Solution: Introduce a separate housing allowance for students adapted to student heterogeneity.
3. Sick idea: Kind of make it easier for students and authorities in any way?
A really super strange idea would be if we moved the administration for a housing allowance for students from the Swedish Social Insurance Agency to CSN? Or wait. Students who receive study grants are already covered by rules regarding income: those who have income above the tax-free amount have their study grant reduced by the corresponding amount. In this way, it is already ensured that only people with low incomes receive study grants. It is CSN that checks that the applicant does not reach the deductible. CSN also checks that those who apply for study grants live up to the requirements for full-time studies or to the extent specified by the student. Does Försäkringskassan have to carry out similar checks on the student's income already entails an administrative duplication of work? By combining payments of housing allowance with payments of study grants, the housing allowance could be based on the income information CSN already collects.
Could an additional advantage of managing students in a separate system be that it is possible to apply more generous rules and at the same time reduce the risk that the system will burden the public sector with incorrect payments? Students are a limited group that is relatively easy to control, and each individual is a student for a limited time. It is also difficult to "earn" on the system as the student loan means that the recipient is in debt at the same time. This means that the risk for the public sector is reduced if, for example, resident or cohabiting students can receive a more generous housing allowance within such a system.
Okay, maybe it was not such a crazy wish anyway. We write it down. All good things are wood.