Bursaries and scholarships: how to secure funding
James Morrison reveals the wealth of bursaries and grants available to students
Published: 15 August 2007
In paper, it was all but impossible for Jamie Alexander Wedge to afford university. The youngest child of a single mother who raised him and his two sisters while working as a shop assistant, he had none of the financial cushion enjoyed by students from more affluent families.
But thanks to a combination of talent, hard graft and a keen eye for an opportunity, Jamie is now reading for a BA in geography at the University of Manchester. Having achieved four As at A-level, he is being part-funded by the newly launched Manchester Advantage Scholarship - a £5,000-a-year grant for gifted students from households with annual incomes of £17,910 or less.
"I'm still working part-time to pay my way through university, but without the scholarship life would have been far harder," reflects Jamie, 19. "It's good to know that Manchester values students regardless of their backgrounds."
It seems Manchester isn't alone. When the Government raised the upper limit for university top-up fees to £3,000 last year, it stressed that, in order to take advantage of the higher ceiling, each institution would first have to prove it was investing sufficient money into widening access to higher education among students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The higher education sector has responded with a bewildering array of bursaries and scholarships - some wholly financial, others largely in kind. In so doing, it has ushered in a degree of competition as yet unmatched by the hitherto stuttering free market in differential tuition fees.
As a bare minimum, every institution charging the full £3,000 fee must pay a modest bursary of £305 a year to all students receiving the maximum £2,765 maintenance grant. But, barely a year after the new system was introduced, most are pledging significantly more, in an effort to gazump their rivals by courting the most able and motivated students.
Non-repayable scholarships of between £1,000 and £3,500 a year are being offered to high achievers by such top-ranking institutions as Newcastle University and Royal Holloway, University of London, while generous means-tested bursaries for poorer applicants are available from the University of Teesside and the University of Gloucestershire.
The University of Southampton offers an encyclopaedic menu of subject-specific grants, largely awarded on a performance-related basis - from £1,000-a-year payments for outstanding students of physics and astronomy to £3,000 entry scholarships in disciplines like archaeology, history and Spanish. In addition, no fewer than 15 annual grants of £2,000 are available to biological science undergraduates, on condition they achieve top grades in pre-university qualifications and go on to pass their first and second year modules with marks of 60 per cent or higher.
At Manchester, meanwhile, straight A students from lower income households who qualify for the flagship £15,000 Advantage scholarship needn't stop there: if they are studying for degrees in the physical sciences or engineering, they may also be eligible for grants from external sponsors. The Procter and Gamble Product Supply Undergraduate Scholarship offers £1,500 and a minimum of 12 weeks' paid work experience a year - not to mention the prospect of a full-time job on graduation - to one high-flying student reading mechanical, aerospace, chemical or electrical engineering. This is dwarfed by the Shell Technical Scholarship, which will pay two undergraduates in mechanical or chemical engineering £10,000 each over three years.
In an echo of scholarship models historically used by major independent schools and Oxford and Cambridge, some grants are targeted at students with the potential to become the next David Beckham or Joss Stone. The University of Kent offers sports scholarships of £1,000 to £5,000 a year to applicants who have competed at regional or national level in under-21 events, and a further 10 awards of up to £3,000 over three years for talented musicians.
Others are focusing on giving more direct, practical help through benefits in kind. The University of Bristol provides a complementary pass to its sports facilities worth £110 a year, while several institutions, including the College of St Mark and St John in Plymouth, offer free laptops. An accommodation discount of £250 for those staying in halls of residence is available from Southampton Solent University, while the Arts Institute in Bournemouth gives each student a £150 bicycle voucher and the Royal College of Music issues travel cards.
But perhaps the most generous packages thus far - if also the most elusive - are those offered by Middlesex University. All applicants who achieve 360 UCAS tariff points qualify for a £1,000 a year Achievement Scholarship, while fashion students can compete for a one-off £5,000 award.
Pick of the bunch are the university's coveted Middlesex First and Future Gold scholarships - each worth £30,000 over three years. Three of the former are awarded to randomly selected applicants who named Middlesex as first choice on their UCAS forms, with Future Gold grants going to sporty students with the potential to represent Britain in the 2012 London Olympics. True to form, one recent recipient, Simeon Williamson, won gold in the 100 metres at the European Athletics Under-23 Championships in July.
Middlesex, which has long boasted one of the most socially and culturally diverse intakes of any UK university, justifies using its bursaries for purposes other than attracting students from disadvantaged backgrounds by citing a spray of statistics. Half of its home students already hail from ethnic minority backgrounds, while 63 per cent are drawn from the local area - normally an indicator of relative hardship.
It denies that, in offering the country's highest bursaries, it is trying to "bribe" students into applying. Mike Dawney, its director for the British Isles, says: "We only give five £10,000 awards a year. With those odds, we don't expect students to apply purely on the basis they might get a scholarship."
So how effectively are universities as a whole using the new "free for all" approach to student giveaways to meet the Government's target of attracting 50 per cent of young people into higher education by 2010 - and, more specifically, to lure more students from poorer backgrounds?
David Barrett, assistant director of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), which is charged with addressing disparities in the numbers of applicants from lower income households, concedes early indications are inconclusive.
"Data relating to parental occupation shows that, in 2006 and so far in 2007, we've not seen an impact on the proportions of lower income groups applying," he says. "On the plus side, proportions of students from poorer households have remained stable despite increases in fees."
The most up-to-date recruitment statistics currently available hail from two years ago. But if their trend is followed, or accelerated, in the wake of the introduction of bursaries and scholarships, there is cause for optimism. According to the figures, published in July by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), the proportion of university applicants from lower income households rose from 28.2 to 29.3 per cent between 2004-5 and 2005-6, while the percentage recruited from the most deprived neighbourhoods crept up from 13.7 to 14 per cent.
Individual universities report promising signs this year, too. Julian Skyrme, head of widening participation at Manchester, says it vastly underestimated the number of new students that would be eligible for the £5,000 a year it pays to every applicant with three As who receives the full grant. In its first year, 216 were claimed - together worth £1m.
"Our aim is to attract the most talented students, regardless of background, and we also want people to be able to concentrate on their studies while here - not have to worry about money," he says. "Students awarded our Advantage scholarships have achieved at the top end academically, but come from some of the poorest households."
The University of Bedfordshire, formed a year ago from the merger of the University of Luton and the Bedford campus of De Montfort University, has seen a 42 per cent rise in applications for 2007 - buoyed by its introduction of annual bursaries worth up to £4,100. Its efforts to help students make ends meet have extended to opening a campus "job shop" to channel them into part-time vacancies that don't clash with their studies.
The University of Cambridge - which has long provided bursaries funded by endowments - now offers grants worth £9,300 over three years, or £12,400 over four. Mature students can do even better, claiming up to £15,450 over a three-year course. The university also targets applicants from humbler backgrounds through summer schools.
Other institutions are concentrating on promoting their existing financial packages, with many websites boasting calculators similar to those used to estimate carbon footprints. But despite going to these lengths, some have found it surprisingly hard to spread the word. The University of Gloucestershire had to hold "awareness-raising" sessions for undergrads after finding many of those entitled to bursaries had failed to claim them.
Professor Patricia Broadfoot, the vice-chancellor, explains: "We checked whether the students had taken up money to which they were entitled, and found a number hadn't. The ones who were slower to do so were generally those not in hardship. As a result, this year we've decided to target bursaries solely at those from less advantaged backgrounds."
Gloucestershire's experience chimes with a recent survey by the Department for Education and Skills, which found that two out of three higher education applicants had no idea bursaries or scholarships were even available. OFFA puts this down, in part, to the failure by many to tick a box on their grant forms allowing the Student Loans Company to share their financial details with universities.
So where should future applicants start when fretting over how to fund their degrees? And how much attention should they pay to financial packages while filling in their UCAS forms - as opposed to choosing the right subject or most suitable location?
"Research suggests finance is fairly low on the list of student priorities," says Barrett. "We certainly wouldn't advise them to make it a higher priority - we'd urge them to focus on career choices and geographical factors. But it's worth finding out the levels of help on offer wherever you decide to go."
For up-to-date information on bursaries and scholarships offered by universities throughout England and Wales, visit http://bursarymap.direct.gov.uk
'I was shocked when I heard I'd been awarded the money'
Denise, 35, was one of just three lucky undergraduates whose names were picked out of a hat to receive the £10,000 a year Middlesex First Scholarship, which is set aside for applicants who put the university down as their first choice when making their final UCAS selections. She hopes the grant - for which she had no idea she was qualified when she applied to Middlesex to read psychology and criminology - will help fund not only her degree but that of her 16-year-old son, Chamile.
"My first reaction when I heard I'd been awarded the money was, 'wow, I'll be debt-free!' I was shocked, because I'd never won anything before in my life," she says. "I knew there were some scholarships available but I thought you had to prove yourself academically to get them. To make sure I get the second and third payments, I do have to continue with my studies and improve on my marks the whole time, but that's not a problem - I want to do that anyway."
Before starting her latest degree course, Denise had to take a month off work, unpaid, to attend a summer school, making up her usual salary by living off her credit card. As a result, she was effectively already in debt before she'd even set foot on the Middlesex campus.
"I have no savings. I just decided I was going to go, so I went and did the summer school," she recalls. "This is something I've always wanted to do. When I tried to go before I wasn't ready for it and Chamile was really young, so I dropped out in the first year. It is hard when you are bringing up children. This time round, I'm more mentally capable."
But with greater maturity has come a stronger financial base, too, thanks to the scholarship. Denise's windfall has enabled her to book the first holiday she'll have taken with Chamile and daughter Savannah, six, for two years - a Christmas trip to Barbados for her brother's wedding. More importantly, though, she can look forward to ending her own degree relatively debt-free, and to being able to help fund her son's.
"Chamile doesn't really want to go - he doesn't want to be in debt when he finishes. But now I'm in the position where I can afford to help him out," she says. "I'm extremely grateful, but I personally don't think you should have to pay to go to university. I also feel sorry for all the other people in my position who don't get bursaries - it would be nice if everyone who needed it could be given a little piece of the pie."
