Study and Starve: Uni Students on the bread line

A piece of toast and a bowl of cereal may not seem like much of a feed,but for desperate university students in Melbourne it might
be all they get.

Demand has skyrocketed this year for free food services at Melbourne campuses with some students surviving on a meal a day.

La Trobe Student Representative Council welfare officer Lachlan Batchelor said up to 100 people came to their breakfast
club each Wednesday on the Bundoora campus to get a piece of toast and a bowl of cereal.

Batchelor said students being hit with rising food prices, rent rises and expensive course costs had led to the demand.

A recent survey by the SRC found 70 percent of students struggled to pay for textbooks,food and accomodation, while
30 per cent of students had a credit card debt.

"It's not only rising rent but things like bond-sometimes its $1000 upfront". " Even students on income support are feeling the
strain quite severly."

RMIT students union welfare officer Tim Roberts said about 120 students turned up to a free soup kitchen on campus
each Wednesday night, but if the service was advertised, he predicted the patronage would jump to more than 500 poor and
hungry students.

Roberts said as rent prices for inner-city housing climbed 17 percent this year, students were being plunged into debt
or poverty, forcing some to drop out of their study and to max out credit cards to survive.

Source: MX Melbourne Daily free Newspaper September 3 2008