By Vivienne Russell | 24 July 2014
There has been a ‘striking’ change in the way universities are spending money in order to support disadvantaged students, the Office for Fair Access said today as it published access agreements for 172 higher education institutions.
Universities and colleges must come to an access agreement with the watchdog in return for charging higher tuition fees. The agreements ensure HE bodies are investing in financial support for poorer students.
Offa highlighted that, for 2015/16, universities and colleges were increasingly tailoring their spending to address the individual challenges they face.
For example, highly selective institutions, which tend to have low proportions of disadvantaged students, are spending more on long-term targeted outreach work.
In contrast, those with more representative student bodies are focusing resources on supporting disadvantaged students with their studies and helping them move on to postgraduate study or work.
‘I am pleased with the increasingly strategic, evidence-led approach we are seeing in the access agreements that universities and colleges submit to us,’ said Professor Les Ebdon, director of fair access to higher education.
‘Most notably, we’ve seen a clear change in investment patterns, with universities and colleges following Offa guidance to identify the areas in which they most need to improve and then to focus the balance of their effort accordingly, making sure they are investing in approaches and activities likely to have the greatest impact.’
Across the HE sector, investment in student support has increased by a third to £323m in cash terms. Of this, £146m will be spent on outreach, £131m on supporting students through their studies and £46m to help students find work and make decisions about further study.
In addition, universities and colleges plan to spend £412m on financial support such as bursaries, scholarships, fee waivers and hardship funds.
Commenting on the findings, Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: ‘Offa may have pushed colleges and universities to stretch their targets but the statistics tell us there is much more to do. Where someone lives and their family background still has far too much bearing on whether they succeed into higher education.
‘There is nothing to be gained by engaging in any sort of blame game for why so many talented young people miss out on higher education. We need the whole education sector and government working together to help students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds succeed at university.’
She added that it was ‘a worry’ that nine institutions had chosen to offer no financial support to students while they study.
