Malta’s Student Stipends Secured: Education Minister Promises 5% Boost and New Rent Top-Up

# Stipends will stay and will only be strengthened – Education Minister

In a move that has sent waves of relief through lecture halls and family kitchens alike, Education Minister Clifton Grima has declared that Malta’s iconic student stipends are “not up for negotiation” and will in fact be “strengthened” in the coming academic year. The pledge, delivered on Tuesday morning outside the University of Malta’s Msida campus, comes amid rising living costs and mounting pressure on students juggling rent, tuition and part-time work.

“Stipends are part of our social contract,” Grima told a crowd of cheering students gathered beneath the historic portico. “They are not a luxury; they are an investment in the Maltese dream that every family—whether from Valletta, Għargħur or Għaxaq—can send their children to higher education without crippling debt.”

The statement ends months of whispered speculation that stipends might be frozen or means-tested as government braces for EU-mandated fiscal tightening. Instead, Grima revealed that the 2025 budget will increase the base stipend by 5 % and introduce a new “rent top-up” of €20 per week for students living away from the parental home. Collectively, the measures will cost an additional €7.8 million annually, financed partly by proceeds from the Malta Individual Investor Programme, the minister said.

## A cultural institution

To outsiders, Malta’s universal stipend system—currently €93 every four weeks for undergraduates—can seem quaint. But on the islands it is regarded as a birth-right, woven into the national story of post-war uplift. Introduced in 1977 under a Labour administration, stipends were the carrot that persuaded wary parents to keep teenagers in school beyond Form 3. Within a generation, university enrolment quadrupled, propelling the country from an illiteracy-scarred British dependency to a services-based EU state.

“Take away stipends and you unravel the pact that built modern Malta,” remarked Prof. Grace Borg, a sociologist who herself relied on the grant while reading medicine in the 1980s. “They symbolise the idea that talent, not postcode, determines destiny.”

That symbolism is why any hint of cuts sparks street protests. In 2008 a proposal to freeze stipends triggered a 5,000-strong march to Castille, forcing a U-turn by the then Nationalist government. Yesterday’s announcement therefore carries political weight beyond its fiscal footprint: with local and European elections looming, parties are keen to court the youth vote.

## Community impact

For families like the Camilleris of Żejtun, the boost can’t come soon enough. Twins Martina and Luke are both reading for degrees at MCAST and the University of Malta, respectively. Their father, a hotel pastry chef, saw his overtime slashed after the pandemic. “Two stipends mean we can still cover the car-park ticket and the Sliema rent for Martina’s photography studio,” their mother Marisa said, clutching yesterday’s Times of Malta. “An extra €80 a month is milk, bus cards, maybe even a celebratory pastizz at Serkin.”

Landlords have already noticed. Johann*, who lets three flats in Gżira popular with Erasmus students, says he expects demand to rise. “If students have a bit more in their pocket, they’ll upgrade from a bunk-bed room to a single,” he admitted. Yet NGOs warn the rent top-up could fuel further price inflation unless accompanied by affordable-housing incentives.

Students themselves greeted the news with cautious optimism. KSU President Naomi Pace Gasan applauded the uplift but called for digital books and laboratory fees to be next in line. “We don’t want to be the generation that owns nothing,” she told Whatsapp campus channel UoMChat. “Strengthening stipends is step one; tackling hidden course costs is step two.”

## Looking ahead

Minister Grima hinted that step two is already being drafted. A white paper due this autumn will explore converting stipends into a “maintenance package” covering laptops, broadband and even a free Tallinja card for full-time students. The aim, officials say, is to align Maltese support with the EU’s highest quartile by 2027.

As the morning sun glinted off the campus limestone, first-year engineering student Aidan Mifsud summed up the mood: “We’ve been told Malta believes in us. Now we have to prove the belief is mutual—by staying, studying and giving back.” For a small island racing to upskill its way into the AI age, that reciprocal faith may be the most valuable endowment of all.