The way EMA is payed out should be changed

[Robbie]

i know someone who cheats EMA so bad.

his dad earns £200k+ lives in a massive house etc. Because he's self employed and has no stable income or some bull he gets £30/week on top of the £50 he gets from his parents.

also know someone who's on EMA but somehow can afford a car. my parents give me £30/month and they think that's alot and they earn £100k between them.

You send them a copy of your earnings for that year when you apply though?

[alexxxxx]

You send them a copy of your earnings for that year when you apply though?

i haven't a clue how they fiddled the system but he gets it. his dad's an accountant or something so he knows what he's doing. he probably buys everything from his company for them and gives himself a stupidly low wage for tax reasons.

[Robbie]

meh, someone i know told them he lives with his 21 year old brother (he doesnt), so he gets 30quid a week

[Charlottay!]

I get the full £30 but i live with just my mum and she earns £15,000. we dont finanically struggle but i also dont get anythin on top of my £30. that money is goin onto drivin lessons once a week.

[Caution]

It's obviously totally flawed and there should be more conditions regarding whether you should get it or not, but I'll be a bit gutted if the Tories are in power by November 'cos I wont be able to get it lol.

[GommeInc]

The problem with that is, some people actually hand it over to their parents to help with day-to-day living costs, so handing them transport costs etc isn't going to help those families is it?

I know some people use their money on questionable things but honestly it allowed me to do things I wouldn't have been able to do without it.

Not being rude, but the EMA is not meant to be a sort of income, it's for transport, equipment and educational reasons, handing it to your parents is more reason the EMA system needs changing :/ Besides, the parents will get some sort of benefit anyway :/

[Alkaz]

Thats a pretty ignorant thing to say, do you think if that wasnt the case parents would actually take that money for food or what ever?

[-:Undertaker:-]

The problem with that is, some people actually hand it over to their parents to help with day-to-day living costs, so handing them transport costs etc isn't going to help those families is it?

I know some people use their money on questionable things but honestly it allowed me to do things I wouldn't have been able to do without it.

It is not the job of the government to fund peoples lives. If anything was fair like it should be, we'd have lower taxes and a simpler tax system which would take the poorest out of the tax system altogether. EMA, and other schemes this government has introduced is just socialism; spreading around the wealth despite the other half not earning or being deserving of it. I get EMA as my Dad is unemployed at the moment, but I accept its just a total waste of money and needs to be scrapped.

[GommeInc]

Ignorant in what way? It's the truth :/ The system is terribly flawed and doesn't work efficiently. It takes ages to get money to the students, when a newer system which gives the students transport passes or equipment would be less of a strain on a centralised system with a terrible statedgy. A localised system, like many universities follow, see that students in a certain area get their transport passes and equipment as soon as possible, while the current EMA system seems to rely on both the colleges and their main headquarters/distribution centre to do the work, when getting each college to have an EMA department OR, like the Open University does (not comparing the two in general, just distribution) where they have branches across the country to deal with the targetted areas. If they cut out giving money to students (a terrible system), and changed it to only focus on what the EMA is about (quoted from the EMA site):

"EMA could help you with the cost of books, travel, equipment or anything useful to continue learning."

Spending it on drink/alcohol, food, games, sex, DVDs, entertainment and gig tickets isn't useful for learning. Nor does giving it to your parents, who should be receiving a form of child benefit anyway which is more than enough to see that the child is fed and given a decent standard of living.

Hopefully if the tories get in, they will scrap the EMA system and think of a new strategy that assists with education that doesn't give "cash in your hands to help you carry on learning", as the EMA so put it, because money can be spent anywhere, so telling students to only spend it, or suggest to, on education will not work. Heck, it would be cheaper to give out transport passes and equipment, than chuck money at students, seeing as bus/train passes do not exceed the maximum income of what the EMA distributes e.g. £10 a week X 30 approx weeks = £300, and equipment can be bought for cheap anyway, seeing as you only need pens and paper for the majority of courses, with all colleges lending out specialised equipment for free such as SLR cameras (though it's useful if you have your own). So yeah, it's not a very well thought out system, with safe to say, a huge percentage of applicants abusing it :/

Not targetting anyone, just the flawed system

[Alkaz]

Lol before anyone starts to 'try' and sort the EMA system out, they need to sort their own systems out first. Also I dont know where you live but where I do, weekly bus passes are more than £10.