The government will not cut scholarships to students in 2016, said the head of the Ministry of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov at a working meeting in Naberezhnye Chelny on Monday, October 26.

Livanov noted that the draft budget for 2016 already includes an indexation of student scholarships by 4%, Interfax reports .

In mid-October, Deputy Prime Minister Olga Golodets, who oversees the social block in the government, said that scholarships would not be increased in the near future. She noted that the priority of the government’s social policy is to support socially vulnerable categories of citizens, primarily pensioners and the disabled. “We believe that you are healthy, strong, and today we are more likely to rely on you in terms of the development of our economy and the fact that you could feed yourself,” Golodets said, addressing the students.

On October 19, Livanov reported that at a meeting of the budget commission he spoke in favor of indexing student scholarships to a level above inflation. “But when I made this proposal, I was told at the budget commission that it would probably be wrong to increase scholarships faster than pensions are raised. Because after all, students can probably earn money themselves, but pensioners can’t always,” the minister said.

See also Forbes Life special project: Billionaire Universities

Livanov ruled out a reduction in scholarships in 2016