Responding to research conducted for The Sutton Trust, ‘Knowing Where to Study? Fees, Bursaries and Fair Access’, Sir Martin Harris, Director of OFFA, said:
“In 2006/7 we saw the introduction of a new and diverse system of institutional bursaries resulting in bursary payments of £96m to more than 70,000 students from low income backgrounds.
“Many feared that the new fee and bursary regime would deter lower income students from entering HE. However, UCAS figures indicate that the proportions of lower income students applying to universities and colleges have remained stable. This is encouraging.
“But as this new report highlights, awareness of bursaries is an issue. This was also evident from our own recent monitoring report which highlighted that perhaps 12,000 students on full state support have failed to collect their bursaries. We have stressed to the whole sector the importance of managing bursary take-up proactively and expect efforts to raise bursary awareness to continue, and where necessary improve, to ensure that as many students as possible claim their bursaries. Clearly, it is important for institutions to make sure that they continue to provide clear and accessible information about bursaries.
“Looking ahead, the Student Loans Company is hard at work developing its Student Finance Direct service. In the future, this should make it much easier for students to compare bursary provision between different institutions and for different courses.
“For our part, OFFA will shortly be commissioning research into initiatives that have been particularly successful in improving bursary take-up and increasing awareness and will use this research to produce best practice guidelines for the sector.”