Minister Pilar Alegría will distribute 2,250 million euros in scholarships and State aid next year, the largest game in history. They are 1,000 million more than what the previous PP government spent. The novelties of this call is that there will be a new universal subsidy, without family income requirements, of 400 euros for students with specific educational support needs and an increase in the amount of the residence grant for students who have to move to another city to study. The Government has also promised to notify in advance the amount to which students will be entitled.
These are the novelties of the royal decree that establishes the income thresholds and the amounts of the scholarships for the 2023/2024 academic year, advanced by EL MUNDO and that the Council of Ministers approved this Tuesday. This decree is approved on the eve of the municipal and regional elections on May 28 and seeks to win over the young vote and that of empty Spain:
The universal subsidy of 400 euros will be received by all students with specific educational support needs derived from disability (a minimum of 33%), autism or serious behavioral or language disorders who are in the second cycle of Infant, Primary, ESO, Baccalaureate and FP regardless of the level of income or the assets of their parents and will be added to the aid that only low-income households already receive for teaching, transportation, dining room, school supplies, residence, pedagogical re-education or language re-education. The objective is for families to be able to face the additional expenses that they have to face in the different therapies, which, together with the current circumstances, requires extraordinary support. 214,000 students will benefit from this aid and for this the Government has provided 200 million euros. Until now, all the aid from the Ministry for students with specific educational support needs has required an income threshold. This was not the case only in the case of school canteen expenses (up to 574 euros) and school transport (up to 617 euros), but only large families could access them. Teaching aid (up to 862 euros), school residence (up to 1,795), weekend transport (up to 442), urban transport (308), school supplies (up to 105 or 204, depending on the stages), pedagogical re-education (up to 913) and language reeducation (until 913) were restricted to low-income households.
The amount of the residence grant will be increased from 1,600 to 2,500 euros for students who have to travel to another city to pursue their Baccalaureate, Basic Vocational Training and University studies, both in the bachelor's and master's degrees. In this case, there will be income limits: only families from thresholds 1 and 2 will be able to choose. These are, for example, four-member households that receive a maximum of 36,421 euros per year. This is a nod to families in rural environments, particularly in empty Spain.
University students receive, in addition to the residence grant and free tuition, a fixed amount (1,700 euros) and another for academic excellence (between 50 and 125 euros), as well as a variable amount that distributes the money left over between all students based on their grade and their income: those with the fewest resources and the best grades achieve receive more. This system was implemented by the PP when José Ignacio Wert was minister. The PSOE criticized it a lot and promised to remove the variable part, but it has not done so. Each year, yes, the amount of aid has increased, while reducing the grade required to access the scholarship.
The application period for aid will begin next March. Since this course, management has been advanced four months. The forecast is that between August and September all those interested will be informed whether or not they meet the conditions so that in the last quarter of 2023 they begin to receive the amount of their scholarship. The students are still demanding that the amounts be detailed before and that the fixed part be paid before the end of December. In theory, the Government has promised that the fixed amount of the scholarship will be collected before the end of December.
The Government has just included in the new Law on Universities, which is approved today in the Senate, that the scholarship is a "subjective right" of the students, which means that all those who meet the financial requirements have access to it. As more and more students need help, more is always spent than what is budgeted. In fact, the Government allocated 2,534 million euros to scholarships in 2022, 14 million more than the item approved for the new course. The next course will undoubtedly spend more than the 2,250 million budgeted and a bag of debt is being generated that was what led the PP to change the system and establish criteria of excellence in the concession.
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