(Guidance note issued 21 September 2010)
To: OFFA HEI contacts
Dear colleague
STRICTLY EMBARGOED UNTIL 00.01 HOURS ON THURSDAY 23 SEPTEMBER
We will be publishing our latest research ‘Have bursaries influenced choices between universities?’ at 00.01 hours on Thursday 23 September 2010.
The research analyses millions of higher education application and participation choices made by young people in order to assess the impact of bursaries on their decision-making. It was commissioned by OFFA from Dr Mark Corver, a participation expert at the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
We have sent a copy of the report to higher education institutions’ press offices this morning using the pr@hefce.ac.uk mailing list. The media will receive the report and release tomorrow (Wednesday), and it is possible that journalists may contact individual universities with questions relating to the report.
Please make sure that any statement you send out after this time carries our embargo.
Key findings
The research to be published on Thursday is based on new statistical analysis of UCAS and OFFA data and shows that disadvantaged young people have not been influenced by the size of bursary on offer when making university choices.
Specifically, the report finds that since the introduction of bursaries for lower income students in 2006:
- disadvantaged young people have not become more likely to apply to universities and colleges offering higher bursaries – these tend to be the most selective universities
- nor have they become more likely to choose higher bursary universities and colleges when they are made an offer of a place
- most of the recent increases in higher education participation among disadvantaged young people have been in universities offering lower bursaries – there has been no material increase in the participation rate of disadvantaged young people at universities and colleges offering higher bursaries.
The full report will be available to download from the OFFA website from Thursday at www.offa.org.uk/publications.
Implications for institutional bursary and outreach schemes
Although bursaries have succeeded in their main objective – to ensure that students are not deterred from going to university on financial grounds – this new analysis shows that the larger bursaries generally offered by the most selective universities have not changed students’ decision-making when applying and choosing between offers. There is now mounting evidence that targeted outreach which boosts achievement and aspirations among disadvantaged young people at a much earlier stage is a more effective way of widening access to these universities.
We are now awaiting the forthcoming recommendations of the Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance and subsequent Government policy before formulating a full policy response to these new findings. In the meantime, we would encourage you to look at your own experience when considering your access agreement policy for 2011-12 and consider whether money intended to create fairer access to your institution is being best spent on higher bursaries, and whether some of this money, particularly where loosely targeted, could be diverted to additional targeted outreach.
We will issue further instructions about 2011-12 bursary and fee levels once the Government has announced the fee and support arrangements, which we expect to be in October.
Where can you find out more information?
If you have any queries, please contact us on 0117 931 7171 or email enquiries@offa.org.uk