By Richard Johnstone | 6 June 2013
Universities increased their spending on projects to widen participation in higher education by 5% in 2011/12, an analysis by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Office for Fair Access has found.
The figures relate to the last year before the cap on tuition fees was increased from £3,375 to £9,000. They show universities spent £444.1m on bursaries and additional outreach activity funded by fees, almost £20m more than in 2010/11.
However, expenditure from other sources, including Hefce’s grant funding, fell over the same year from £645m to £624m, according to the Joint monitoring outcomes report.
The higher education bodies said English universities had continued to support people from disadvantaged backgrounds with the potential to benefit from higher education, but were ‘rebalancing the sources of funding’.
The majority of universities and colleges met or exceeded the access targets they set themselves in 2011/12. In total, they spent £386.5m on bursaries and scholarships for students from lower income and other under-represented groups, up from £378.1m in 2010/11. The vast majority of this money – 82% – was spent on students who received full payment of their fees. In total, 455,000 students from lower income backgrounds and other under-represented groups received a bursary or scholarship, compared with 432,000 in 2010/11.
Universities are required to take further steps to widen participation if they charge between £6,000 and the maximum £9,000 in tuition fees, following the government’s increase in fees for the academic year starting in August 2011. Agreements in place with Offa mean higher-charging universities have committed to spend more than £600m a year on improving access by 2014/15.
Publishing today’s figures, Offa director Professor Les Ebdon said the increased investment in support programme from higher tuition fees was ‘to be welcomed’.
He added that the new fee regime, which was in place from August 2012, was already leading to a ‘step change’ in support programmes.
‘We have asked for an even greater focus on outreach in the very latest access agreements to come before us for approval – the agreements for 2014/15 that we’re currently assessing. We also want future access agreements to show an increasingly strategic approach, with institutions basing their investment decisions on a better understanding of what works best to improve access at their particular institution,’ said Ebdon.
‘The challenge of effective evaluation in a fast-changing environment should not be under-estimated. But institutions must get smarter in their investment if we are to make more progress in closing the unacceptably large gap in participation in higher education that remains between advantaged and disadvantaged people.’
Hefce chief executive Sir Alan Langlands said universities and colleges had continued to encourage participation in higher education.
He added: ‘We will be interested to see how the changing patterns of investment signalled in this report develop in future years, given the shift to the new fee system.
‘Attracting students from disadvantaged backgrounds to take part in higher education is a vital aspect of widening participation. These students also tend to progress, succeed and contribute greatly to the economy.’
Responding to the figures, the University and College Union said the report was a ‘timely reminder’ of the importance of funding for widening participation activity.
The union’s head of higher education Michael MacNeil said more could still be done to support students while they were studying at university. ‘Fee waivers are a cheaper option for universities – and reducing fees to try to entice students appears to sit at odds with government claims that high fees are not a deterrent.
'And we urge the government to resist the temptation to trade widening participation money off against funding for teaching and research in the forthcoming Spending Review. Universities need both sources of income.'
