Campus Review Volume 28 - Issue 11 | November 2018 | Seite 24

ON CAMPUS
campusreview.com.au
‘Many cannot afford to eat’
Postgrads on the poverty line plead for concessions.
By Loren Smith
E
niola David Ibraheem, the second of four children, hails from
Nigeria. He initially studied international law and diplomacy
and worked as a mediator in his home country. Now, as a
master’s in social work student at Monash University, he could not
be further from his roots. Yet he remains committed to causes.
As president of the Monash Postgraduate Association (MPA), he
is a leader of the fight for concession fares for full-time Victorian
postgraduates.
Victoria is the only state that doesn’t provide concession fares
to full-time postgraduate students, which Ibraheem says are
much-needed.
“I’ve been with the MPA for about two-and-a-half years, and
I’d say that within that period, there’s been a constant flow of
students coming in to ask for any of the benefits we can offer
them,” he says.
The MPA held an on-campus rally recently to raise awareness
of the issue. Along with a barbecue to attract interest, it circulated
a petition by FaresFairPTV, a Victoria-wide student-led group, to
collect signatures of students and staff.
Saskia Ruttor, a PhD student at Monash’s School of Geosciences,
has lent her voice to the campaign. Her undergraduate friend earns
more than her and, unlike Ruttor, receives concession fares. 
“How is that fair or reasonable?” she asks.
Full-time postgraduate students, many of whom are undertaking
PhDs, survive by – if they’re lucky – receiving a stipend, in addition
to doing casual work. This doesn’t amount to much, says Council
of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) national president
Natasha Abrahams. “It’s not comfortable to be a PhD student.”
Ibraheem adds that “the majority of full-time postgraduate
students receive an income only slightly above the poverty line”.
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Abrahams, who is doing a PhD in sociology at Monash, used
to receive a stipend. However, her thesis is taking longer than
expected, and the stipend has run out. Now, she works as well
as studies to stay afloat, and says it’s cheaper for her to drive to
university than to use public transport.
“If I was to use public transport every day, I’d be spending about
$60 a week … which is a lot,” she says. “It’s just another one of
those little things to stress about which is more expensive than it
needs to be.”
Through the campaign, Abrahams hopes to dispel the myth
that postgraduate students are well off.
“In previous years, it might have been that a typical visible
postgraduate student would be a man in his 40s coming back to do
an MBA [so] he could get a promotion. These days, postgraduate
students are a lot more diverse; there’s a huge amount of
international students, many of whom literally cannot afford to eat.
There are a lot of domestic students who are quite young and very
similar in their characteristics to undergraduate students,” she says.
Ibraheem says postgraduate international students have it
particularly hard, due to restricted work rights. In opposing
concession fares for full-time postgrads, the Victorian Labor
government argues that, if deemed in-need, they already have
access to the Low Income Health Care Card. This can allow users
cheaper public transport.
“There are no current plans to provide postgraduate students
with concessions on any other basis,” says Tim Clare, a Public
Transport Victoria spokesperson.
Yet international students are not eligible for the card. Further,
long waiting periods can apply. This is Abrahams’ current
situation: she put in an application some time ago, and awaits her
card, “so at the moment I’m paying full fares for public transport
even though I’m low income,” she says.
Abrahams and her peers might not have to wait much longer
for cheaper fares, with or without the card. With a state election
scheduled for 24 November, postgraduates hope that if the Liberal
party wins, it will answer their plea.  ■