Námsmenn af fullri alvöru - Gegn niðurskurði fjárframlaga til LÍN

#6: x - ...

I think you're completely missing the point.  First of all, if you want to get a loan for 20 ects, according to the new requirements you can't . It actually is a biggie. The minimum credit requirements is 22 ects, which doesn't correspond to the courses offered at most departments ( 8 and 10 etcs courses are a lot more common than 5 and 6 etcs, rendiring it very unlikely for a student to pass exactly 22 credits in a semester). Just the fact that you are unaware of this makes me wonder if you even know what this petition is all about.

Secondly, it's not about being lazy. Not at all! It's about the fact that with the new requirements there's no room for slightest mishaps for a large number of students. Many departments have 10 etc courses so if a student is unlucky and gets sick during the final exam of a single course, he/she will not get any student loans and will be stuck with a massive dept with his/her bank. In that case the student will most likely be forced to quit university studies while getting the finances fixed.

Also, many Icelandic students have families and most of them are parents of young children who are unable to take care of themselves. These students often don't have the same amount of time to devote to their studies and they need to be flexible if anything should happen during peak points of their studies, such as if their children get sick. Plus, these students carry major financial responsibilities, so needless to say the risk of not getting any student loans due to failing a single class will worry them. I'm pretty sure that if you were dependent on student loans to feed and clothe your child you would be worried about that risk.

Furthermore, this is awful news for students with limited number of credits left before graduation who have already planned their upcoming semesters. On my last BA semester I had only 20 credits left. Not because I had been lazy the previous semesters (like you suggest must be the case if you take a smaller loan than a full semester), but because I went on exchange the year before and had some obligatory classes left. According to the new rules, I would not have gotten any student loans at all that semester. If had happened, I would not have been able to afford my studies despite my part time job.

Having said this, there are multiple other reasons why some students go slower than the full 30 etcs per semester, such as illness and learning disabilities. It's great to finish a semester of with full 30 etcs but there are multiple reasons why some students go slower. So, if you finish all your semesters with full credits, that's awesome! But please don't assume that everyone that doesn't is simply lazy.