Testimonial #32

I was very sad to hear of the planned cuts/changes to the Student Advice Service as I think the current setup is a vital part of student support. I’m a mature 3rd-year student and, at the time I was a single dad, with my daughter at college, as well as trying to complete my degree. My financial situation became so precarious that the only choice was to go back to work and I faced the prospect of giving up my degree. My student advisor helped enormously with arranging an alternative of intermitting for a year. Due to the timing of this decision, this was quite a problematic arrangement, but she went through hoops to get this organised. Without her help I would have almost certainly had to give up my degree. This kind of background support it vital to many students and it is very important that the advisors are able to give close one-to-one advice and assistance. A one-off ‘drop-in for a chat for a couple of minutes’ is not a viable alternative in most cases and if this were the only support on offer, the student drop-out rate would increase enormously and would be much more costly to the University overall, that any possible budgetary savings.