news@glasgowguardian.co.uk
27th April 20092 NEWS
IN BRIEF
Lecturer dies inbiking accident
GLASGOW UNIVERSITY LECTURER DrAndrew Cathcart has died in a biking acci-dent at the age of 31.The accident happened on April 21 whilston a research trip in South Africa.Dr Cathcart specialised in neurosciencein the Faculty of Biomedical Life Sciencesand was post-graduate superviser and anadviser of studies to many undergraduatestudents at Glasgow.The SRC co-ordinated additionalacademic support for his students alongsidethe science faculty.Dr Cathcart will be sorely missed by hispeers and students alike.
Sallie Mae accused of predatory lending
Government improves disability support
Breakthrough indrug treatment
THE SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE HASannounced plans to implement new measuresaimed at giving greater support and advice todisabled students.The new procedures will mean that anexpert group will review the case of anystudent who does not meet the existing criteriafor assistance if their application has beensupported by their institution.Scottish students will be the first in the UKto benefit from the introduction of a formalprocedure for exceptional cases.Other changes announced include improve-ments to the applications process, an exten-sion of the non-medical help allowance, andimproved guidance to increase awareness of Disabled Student Allowance eligibility.Fiona Hyslop, Secretary for Education andLifelong Learning, believes that the changeswill help to improve the access to support fordisabled students.She said: “Colleges and universities areworking to continuously improve access fordisabled students. This review will help usbuild on that work and ensure that disabledstudents get the support they need to under-take their studies on a level playing field withtheir peers.”Gavin Lee, SRC President, welcomed themoves, hoping that they will help to possiblebarriers to higher education.He said: “Increasing awareness of thissupport is crucial – funding can only be of use if students, or potential students, are aware of theresources. The University and the Governmentmust ensure there is not an ‘information barrier’to entering higher education.”“For many disabled students, part-timestudy is the best option. It is concerning,then, that disabled students cannot receivefunding if they are doing less than 50% of afull-time course.“We’re looking forward to seeing thegovernment providing support for these part-time disabled students in the future.”Jo Evans, a fourth-year student at GlasgowUniversity who requires the use of a wheel-chair, believes that it is important to ensure thatdisabled people are aware of the support avail-able to them at university in order to encouragemore applications.She said: “For people who aren’t awarethere is support available there needs to bemore publicity about the help available to helpencourage applications.“It is important to make people aware thatthere is help available and that they are entitledto it.”
Craig MacLellan
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She said: “Individuals need individual loanrepayment solutions, and in this environment,we want to work with students to make surethey can successfully manage their loans. Wedo everything we can to offer counselling andindividual flexibility to help students avoiddefault.”The burden of student debt is often carriedover generations. Sculpture and environmentalart student Kira Thomas told Guardian that hergrandparents had to act as cosignatories for herSallie Mae loan as her mother was still payingoff her own student loan.Provided she makes every payment on herprivate loan, which constitutes 80% of her totalborrowing, she will eventually pay back morethan twice the $43,000 she borrowed.“I am worried that if my grandparents get toold to cosign and I am unable to borrow more Iwill have to drop out of art school.” she said.Caleb Churchill, a photography studentat Glasgow School of Art, originally took outloans totaling $85,031 in 2005. Since then, inspite of making regular payments of over $500per month on the accrued interest, he now owesSallie Mae over $94,000.However, he took a different view on hissituation, as he explained:“This is the way it goes, the way the systemis structured. I don’t understand why studentsborrow from Sallie Mae then bitch about it;they should know the conditions before theysign up.”American student loans are divided intofederal and private loans; federal loans arelimited but have a lower interest rate as they areguarunteed by the government; private loanshave higher interest rates and no state subsidy.Speaking for Sallie Mae, Christel claimedthat their private loans had a higher risk for thelender: “Sallie Mae offers private loans, whichare different from federally guaranteed loans inthat all risk is assumed by the lender and thereis no government guarantee.”However in the case of federal loans,companies such as Sallie Mae are able to takepayments from a debtor’s social security fundor pay check if they default on a federal loan,giving the lender total security.Alan M. Collinge, spokesperson for theresistance group StudentLoanJustice.org, wasmore critical of the American loan system thanSallie Mae itself, citing the gradual reductionof borrowers protections as the reason for theexploitation of student loans.He said: “Student Loans are the only typeof loan in modern US history to be specificallystripped of bankruptcy protections, statues of limitations, refinancing rights, and other funda-mental consumer protections.“The root cause of most of these problemslies in the fact that Congress removed thesefundamental protections. This has made it morelucrative for the system when students fallbehind, and has caused predatory behavior tooccur. This predatory lending system also hascontributed greatly to the astonishing rise intuition costs – much like in the subprime homemortgage industry.”Christel defended the practicality of theirstudent loans:“When compared to other types of consumerdebt, for example credit cards or car loans,student loans offer a variety of options.”Collinge called for a solution to the problem,he said: “The answer is simple: Congress must,at a minimum, return the standard consumerprotections to student loans that it took away.This is at a minimum.”In accordance President Obama has alreadyexpressed a desire to expand the availabilityof Direct Loans from the Board of Education,thus bypassing the private loan companies.This move is being resisted by lobby groupAmerica's Student Loan Providers.RESEARCHERS AT THE UNIVERSITYOF Glasgow have made a major break-through which could lead to the develop-ment of safer drugs for the treatment of Sleeping Sickness.The illness, also known as Human AfricanTrypanosomasis, is generally accepted asone of Africa’s neglected diseases, killingup to 50,000 people every year.The disease, which is transmitted by thetsetse fly, causes an infection in the brainwhich results in confusion, paralysis, coma,the reversal of the normal sleep cycle, and if it remains untreated, death.However, the current treatments are sotoxic that they kill one in 20 patients whoare given it, as Melarsoprol, the arsenic-based drug used, can trigger very severebrain inflammation.Staff from the University’s Medical,Veterinary and Life Science faculties havenow found that inhibiting a particularmetabolic pathway in the brain – knownas the kynurenine pathway – can signifi-cantly reduce inflammation in the brains of animals infected with the parasites whichcause Sleeping Sickness.The study was led by Burton Professorof Neurology at Glasgow University, PeterKennedy. He believes that the discoverybrings scientists closer to developing a safertreatment for the disease.He said: “We are unquestionably onestep closer to developing safer combinationdrugs for the treatment of sleeping sick-ness.“We believe that when treating patientswith Melarsoprol it would be possible tominimize brain damage if a specific anti-inflammatory drug was administered beforethe patient received Melarsoprol.“We will of course need to test thistheory, but this finding is extremely prom-ising.”
Jim Wilsonim Wilson
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