What is a bursary?

It is defined as:

1. The treasury of a public or religious organisation.

2. A scholarship based on financial need for a university student.

Well, we all knew that, didn’t we? But apparently many do not. Higher education policy has long stressed the need to attract all young people who are capable of benefiting from the experience. Primarily this means attracting applications from suitably qualified members of social classes and ethnic groups that are presently under-represented. To this end universities have made available many new bursaries to add to the thousands already in existence. But applications from under-represented sections of the population are not increasing and bursaries are not being taken up.

Sir Martin Harris director of the Office for Fair Access, supported by Bill Rammell the minister for higher education, proposed that unused funds should be diverted to encouraging secondary school pupils to aim for university.

The first post 1992 university to introduce additional bursaries for students from low income backgrounds discovered that ‘the award of a bursary had a significant and positive impact upon the continuation rate of students from low-income backgrounds, making them more likely to persist with their studies’[i]. However, ‘bursaries reached only a small proportion of low-income students’.

The same authors revisited the subject in 2005[ii]. The second, larger scale, study confirmed that retention rates were higher among those in receipt of a bursary. Their work ethic and exam results were also better. The authors were unsure if the determination of bursary recipients to succeed was caused by the bursaries. Or, perhaps their determination had caused them to pay sufficient attention to the application process to notice that bursaries were available. The bursary recipients studied because they still needed to do more paid work than better off students and had no time left to party.

Nick Adnett, writing in the Higher Education Quarterly[iii], refers to evidence that the debts of disabled and working class students were respectively 37 per cent and 46 per cent higher than the average. Since the introduction of tuition fees there was also an increase in students who regretted having entered university. Evidence from Universities UK sponsored research[iv] among school and FE leavers showed that students from poorer backgrounds were more debt averse than those from other backgrounds. Debt tolerant prospective students were one and a quarter times more likely to enter HE than debt averse students. The most debt averse were Muslims, the lower income social classes, lone parents, black and minority ethnic groups. Adnett may have hit on the main reason for the low uptake of bursaries among those most in need;

‘The 2006–2007 changes in England and Northern Ireland and those in the following year in Wales will lead to a further major increase in the overall complexity of the financial decisions facing HE entrants. In the absence of a national bursary system, in England and Northern Ireland, potential applicants have to access each HEI, and collect and analyse data concerning tuition fees and the size of, and eligibility conditions for, financial assistance schemes. Even if potential students had the necessary analytical skills to assess the information accessed, the lack of any simple means of comparing the diverse packages available among HEIs makes systematic search exceedingly expensive in time.’

However, in many parts of the country almost 100 per cent of those entitled to enter higher education do so. Raising the participation rate entails intervention almost from birth to raise expectations and achievements among those sections of the community which do not presently regard university education as normal. The paper concludes that an effective support system for those at university would cover students’ living expenses and be UK wide. Perhaps it could be called a student grant?

The effect of bursaries on high scoring A-level students applying to Cambridge is discussed in the Higher Education Quarterly[v] . The bursary in question was from the Isaac Newton Trust, the sum of £1,000 being available to those students who had all or most of their fees paid by the local education authority. 29 percent of applicants felt that they would qualify.

The main finding is that bursaries are only one of many factors considered by potential applicants. Further, the importance of each factor tends to differ according to social and economic background. The researchers contacted three groups of state schools, those that regularly sent large numbers of applications, those that occasionally sent applications and those that had not previously applied. Responses came most heavily from those schools which regularly sent many applications and least heavily from those with no history of applications. It was discovered that some of the schools that had not sent applicants and not replied to the survey believed that none of their current cohort were likely to qualify for admission to Cambridge.

Analysis of those students who did apply to university revealed a predominantly middle class background with a choice of subjects close to the national averages except for a higher proportion of students for mathematics and natural sciences applying to Cambridge rather than other elite universities. Those who applied to Cambridge liked the course content and structure, liked the teaching methods and believed that they would fit in. Conversely for those fearful souls who did not apply. Fear of failure in the application process, fear of not meeting academic standards and fear of not fitting in were much more prevalent in those from working class backgrounds with no family history of higher education. Both these groups were high achievers at A-level.

The £1,000 bursary was seen by those from poorer backgrounds as partially compensating for the higher cost of living and greater difficulty of working in term time. A larger amount would have been more influential but would not have overcome distaste for course content and structure.

So, is Sir Martin right to suggest redirecting funds from bursaries to PR work among those schools and socio-economic groups that do not traditionally apply to university? That would certainly have some effect in encouraging non-traditional applicants to consider university and possibly assuage their social insecurities. But it would not address their fear of debt; in fact by removing some financial support would worsen that fear. Sir Martin ignores a main reason for the low uptake of bursaries: the difficulty in finding out about the many and varied sources and their inadequate size in relation to student expenditure. Perhaps the biggest reason why non-traditional students do not apply for bursaries is that they do not achieve the necessary grades for admission in the first place. We need a simplified national bursary scheme, a bigger bursary, better publicity, and more education of non-traditional students in the virtues of university. Most of all we need to make all schools good schools and all parents committed to their children’s academic success. How, is a harder question.

References

[i] The new widening participation students: Moral imperative or academic risk?

Authors: Hatt S.; Baxter A.; Harrison N.

Source: Journal of Access Policy and Practice, Volume 1, Number 1, 1 December 2003, pp. 16-31(16)

Publisher: National Institute of Adult Continuing Education

[ii] Sue Hatt, Andrew Hannan, Arthur Baxter (2005)

Bursaries and Student Success: a Study of Students from Low-Income Groups at Two Institutions in the South West

Higher Education Quarterly 59 (2), 111–126.

doi:10.1111/j.1468-2273.2005.00285.x

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2273.2005.00285.x

[iii] Nick Adnett (2006)

Student Finance and Widening Participation in the British Isles: Common Problems, Different Solutions

Higher Education Quarterly 60 (4), 296–311.

doi:10.1111/j.1468-2273.2006.00325.x

[iv] Callender, C.. "Does the Fear of Debt Deter Students from Higher Education?." Journal of social policy 34.4 (2005):509-.

[v] Higher Education Quarterly Vol 60 No. 1, January 2006. University Choice: What Influences the Decisions of Academically Successful Post-16 Students?

Joan M.Whitehead, JohnRaffan and RosemaryDeaney

pages 4–26

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1468-2273.2006.00305.x