Nearly a third of health and teaching students say they have had severe food insecurity during their practical work placements, where they are not eating enough, skipping meals and experiencing chronic hunger as they are unable to afford food.
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New University of Wollongong research, which is the first post-pandemic look at the poverty experienced by students undertaking mandatory work placements as part of their degree, also found that a further 32 per cent of students were moderately food insecure.
"This is the two-minute noodle group," researcher Associate Professor Kelly Lambert said.
"The variety of foods is limited so they don't choose fruit and vegetables and the foods they're eating is far less desirable because they can't afford food of good quality.
"With those two categories together, that's over 50 per cent of students who are on really terrible amounts of money and food, and that compromises their health, not just in the short term, but in the long term too."
The Wollongong research team, led by Prof Lambert and Dr Anne McMahon, surveyed more than 600 students across Australia and New Zealand about their experiences with poverty while on placement.
"The stories we're hearing are harrowing," Dr McMahon said.
"These are people that want to work in health, and the irony is that they are basically putting themselves at personal health risk through to get through their degree.
"There are people talking about having massive panic attacks at night and trying to calm themselves because of their fear about their financial situation."
In the survey, 77 per cent of students were experiencing some type of food insecurity, meaning only one in five students had no issues with food.
Students also reported a high level of burn out and detrimental effects on their physical and mental health, and Prof Lambert said hundreds of open-ended responses offered a heartbreaking look into life on practical placement.
"My extremely tight budget means I forego medical treatment, social extracurricular activities and anything else that might incur a cost," one respondent said.
Others said: "I disengage from my mental health treatments to avoid spending money" or "I avoid doctors, have no time to exercise, no money to eat well.
Other students said they were "emotionally and mentally burnt out from trying to keep up" and that "I'm socially isolated and broke".
Worse than ever
While the "poor student" stereotype is not new, Prof Lambert said the situation for today's health and education students - the majority of whom are women - was worse than ever.
"The food costs are more, the rent costs are more, and the actual cost of studying is more in proportion to the income that these students can get," she said.
"It is different times and the expectations are different on students."
Acknowledging this tough environment, the Albanese government has announced the introduction of a $320 a week payment for nursing, teaching, midwifery, and social work students undertaking mandatory workplace placement.
However, other health students - like those in veterinary science, medicine, occupational therapy, physiotherapy and psychology - will miss out.
Dr McMahon said there was starting to be more recognition of how widespread placement poverty has become.
"In the past few years, there has been a slowly moving avalanche around the distress that people are recognising for students across health, as well as teaching, in terms of placement requirements," Dr McMahon said.
While other research focused on problems during the pandemic, the UOW research shows this is an ongoing problem that potentially has huge implications for the future of the health and education workforce.
"What we're hearing in the research is that this is really leading to burnout - and burnout before they even start," Dr McMahon said.
"You've got health, mental health and teaching professionals exhausted before they actually go into their professional practice, and that probably underscores why you see so much loss in the healthcare workforce and also the teaching workforce in that first five years.
"If you've come out burnt out and then you go into a space that's already challenged because of resourcing you're not going have the resilience to keep going."
What needs to be done to ease the pressure on students
The government says its new payment will ease cost-of-living pressures for around 68,000 eligible higher education students and over 5,000 VET students each year.
This payment will be means-tested and available from July 1, 2025 and will be in addition to any income support students also receive.
Prof Lambert said the payment was a good start, and would go some way to covering the costs of doing a work placement.
However, she said it would not cover students who need to find accommodation in regional and remote placements, or make up for the loss of income students have to cop when they are unable to work while on prac.
Dr McMahon said she was left wondering what would happen to all the students completing prac in the next year who will not have access to the payment.
Both academics said the government, accreditation bodies and universities needed to work together to find more solutions.
In the survey, solutions suggested by students included allowing part-time placements, assistance finding accommodation, the ability to work flexibly especially for social work and psychology placements, flexible options for people with children, access to emergency funds, free or subsidised parking for hospital placements and access to subsidised food support.
Dr McMahon said UOW was already making efforts to help students, looking at providing scholarships and emergency funding where required.
Whitlam MP, Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones said the government's new payment would provide much-needed cost-of-living support for students in the Illawarra, while Cunningham MP Alison Byrnes said the region needed more teachers and health workers.
"It is no secret that the Illawarra needs more local teachers, nurses, social workers and midwives, after years of skills shortages across the region," she said.
"Making sure our students can afford to complete their training here at home whilst studying at our world class University of Wollongong is a major win for our region."
"It will allow us to better retain our workforce whilst encouraging more workers to upskill or change professions to high need areas without being financially penalised."