DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

As the Gov­ern­ment pre­pares to un­veil its 2026 Bud­get on Mon­day, a sense of un­ease hangs over the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine cam­pus. While some stu­dents ex­pressed cau­tious op­ti­mism, oth­ers voiced deep anx­i­ety.

For many stu­dents, the com­ing fis­cal plan is not just about num­bers; it’s about sur­vival.

Guardian Me­dia gath­ered six stu­dents from five fac­ul­ties—in­clud­ing Nurs­ing, Com­put­er Sci­ence, Ac­count­ing, The­atre Arts, and In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions—to gauge ex­pec­ta­tions ahead of Bud­get Day. Their dis­cus­sions re­vealed a gen­er­a­tion caught be­tween hope and hard­ship, ques­tion­ing whether pol­i­cy­mak­ers tru­ly un­der­stand the re­al­i­ties of youth liv­ing un­der ris­ing costs, lim­it­ed jobs, and crum­bling in­fra­struc­ture.

“Quite frankly, we’re still a lit­tle bit lost about what to ex­pect next week, Mon­day,” said Mikail Bar­rock, a nurs­ing stu­dent from the Fac­ul­ty of Med­ical Sci­ences. “All we’re ex­pect­ing right now is the worst.”

The cost of stu­dent life

From healthy food and trans­porta­tion to rent and tu­ition, stu­dents said the cost of liv­ing has be­come un­bear­able. Many point to the Gov­ern­ment As­sis­tance for Tu­ition Ex­pens­es pro­gramme, or GATE, as a pol­i­cy that once opened doors but now leaves too many on the thresh­old.

“The means-rate cal­cu­la­tion could prob­a­bly be ad­just­ed,” said Bre­ana Moolchan, an ac­count­ing stu­dent. “It doesn’t ac­count for the re­al cost of liv­ing.”

The­atre arts stu­dent Shanae Wal­cott agreed, ar­gu­ing that the sys­tem as­sumes all fam­i­lies are fi­nan­cial­ly sup­port­ive.

“It have some peo­ple that I know, their par­ents don’t sup­port them,” she said. “But GATE, since they’re un­der 25, GATE still wants to see the parental payslip. They get a per­cent­age they can’t af­ford on their own, and GATE as­sumes the par­ents must take care of them be­cause that’s what they’re sup­posed to do legal­ly—but that doesn’t hap­pen.”

For oth­ers, those gaps in sup­port ex­tend far be­yond tu­ition. UWI Guild pres­i­dent Vedanand Har­gob­in, who stud­ies in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions, said the tran­si­tion from cam­pus to the job mar­ket has be­come dis­heart­en­ing.

“I have a lot of friends and col­leagues who would have grad­u­at­ed and are now un­em­ployed,” he said.

“Noth­ing’s wrong with work­ing min­i­mum wage, right out of UWI, cause you have to start some­where. But, be­sides jobs and be­sides get­ting a pay, what do you do with that pay af­ter? Be­cause I can’t tell you the last time I heard some­one my age bought a house, or some­one my age is able to get a mort­gage or to get a car with­out parental sup­port. It does not make sense that you go to school, you get a job, you start to work, and then there’s noth­ing you could do be­sides buy food. Be­cause your salary is just to sur­vive and not to ac­tu­al­ly ex­cel.”

In­fra­struc­ture, safe­ty, and sur­vival

Even the sim­ple act of at­tend­ing class has be­come a chal­lenge. Fre­quent flood­ing across parts of the coun­try, in­clud­ing ma­jor ar­ter­ies near the cam­pus, has forced stu­dents to miss lec­tures, ex­ams, and lab ses­sions.

“When it floods, it’s im­pass­able,” said Stephanie Ram­per­sad, an­oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions stu­dent. “If I can’t get to school, then I miss out on im­por­tant things.”

Safe­ty con­tin­ues to be a grow­ing con­cern, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those who at­tend class­es at the near­by De­part­ment of Cre­ative and Fes­ti­val Arts, which sits off the main cam­pus.

“Some­times stu­dents walk to DC­FA, which is a five-minute walk through St Au­gus­tine, through Tu­na­puna, and they get robbed,” Har­gob­in said. “I can’t tell you the last time I saw a blue light (TTPS ve­hi­cle) around the cam­pus. Cam­pus se­cu­ri­ty does a great job, and you see their yel­low lights and white vans pa­trolling through­out the night, but it’s on­ly so much they could do.”

A call for tar­get­ed in­vest­ment

Across the fo­cus group, sev­er­al clear themes emerged: bet­ter ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion, tar­get­ed job cre­ation, and stronger so­cial safe­ty nets. Stu­dents want the Gov­ern­ment to ex­plic­it­ly ad­dress youth un­em­ploy­ment and to in­vest in emerg­ing in­dus­tries that can ab­sorb new grad­u­ates, par­tic­u­lar­ly tech­nol­o­gy, tourism, and green en­er­gy.

“We need that Da­ta Pro­tec­tion Act and we need a da­ta pro­tec­tion of­fi­cer along to go with it,” said com­put­er sci­ence stu­dent Mar­lon Mc­Carthy. “I’ve seen the ad out for that da­ta com­mis­sion­er, and I must say it’s a great ini­tia­tive, but the qual­i­fi­ca­tions for that da­ta com­mis­sion­er, not many lawyers will con­test that po­si­tion. The amount of qual­i­fi­ca­tions a per­son needs for that, time, they’re ready to ap­ply for that, they’re al­ready a sea­soned lawyer that has x-amount of clients and will have to switch from pri­vate sec­tor to pub­lic sec­tor. ”

Stu­dents al­so called for stipends for med­ical and nurs­ing stu­dents, wider GATE cov­er­age for pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tions like AC­CA, and greater en­try-lev­el op­por­tu­ni­ties through the On-the-Job Train­ing (OJT) pro­gramme.

While some ex­pressed their frus­tra­tion with hu­mour, the un­der­ly­ing mes­sage re­mained se­ri­ous.

“We want box lunch in UWI,” Bar­rock joked, draw­ing laugh­ter from his col­leagues. An­oth­er stu­dent chimed in, “Let me on the bus for free, please.”

But for Ram­per­sad, the is­sue is about sur­vival, not com­fort. “There should be dis­counts for ter­tiary stu­dents in gro­cery stores,” she said. “It’s so ex­pen­sive to af­ford food that’s ac­tu­al­ly healthy for us.”

Moolchan added that sub­sidised hous­ing for uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents should al­so be a pri­or­i­ty.

De­spite the frus­tra­tion, most stu­dents who spoke said they still hold on to cau­tious op­ti­mism. They want to see a bud­get that in­vests in youth, health­care, in­fra­struc­ture, and ed­u­ca­tion re­form. They be­lieve this could re­build pub­lic trust and give them a rea­son to stay in Trinidad and To­ba­go af­ter grad­u­a­tion.