Understanding the impact of institutional financial support
Project aims
This project aims to:
- improve the evidence around the impact of financial support, such as bursaries and scholarships, that universities and colleges provide for students
- inform the approaches that universities and colleges take in their work to improve access and student success
- support institutions in improving evaluation of the impact of their financial support schemes.
Why do we need to do this?
There is a pressing need to improve evidence and understanding about the role that financial support plays in widening participation, as discussed in chapter 1 of the national strategy for access and student success. Universities and colleges invest substantially in financial support packages for students each year, and it is important that this money is being used effectively and in an evidence-led way.
Previous analysis such as An interim report: Do bursaries have an effect on retention rates (OFFA publication 2014/02) and Have bursaries influenced choices between universities? (OFFA publication 2010/06) have found no evidence that institutional bursary schemes have an observable effect on choice of where to study, or continuation rates, for young full-time first-degree students. However, this analysis did not seek to understand the role that institutional bursaries play in the post-2012 system of student fees, so it is appropriate that we take a further look at the impact of financial support in the current context.
This project also aims to create new ways of working with universities on research and analysis that improves understanding of evidence around access both within OFFA and throughout the higher education sector. This is a key aspect of our support for institutions to take an evidence-led approach to improving performance across the whole student lifecycle, as discussed in our recent strategic plan.
What has happened so far?
Literature review
A review of existing evidence about the impact of financial support on the experience of students within higher education study was undertaken by Nursaw Associates after a call for evidence. This included institutional reviews and evaluation alongside peer-reviewed and published research, enabling OFFA, and the sector, to build an understanding of the broader national picture. The review, What do we know about the impact of financial support on access and student success?, was published in March 2015 is available on our Analysis, data and progress reports web page.
Conference and special issue of the Journal of Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning
We held a one-day conference, Your student financial support model and its contribution to access, retention and success, in March 2015, in partnership with CFE Research/Edge Hill University and Universities UK. The conference brought together academics, researchers and practitioners interested in the impact of financial support on disadvantaged students’ experience of higher education.
Slides from the conference are available on the Universities UK website.
Papers from the conference have been published in a special issue of the Journal of Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning. They contain a wealth of new evidence about the impact of financial support on the experience of higher education students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and show that financial support can make a positive contribution to the student experience, and to continuation and completion, when it is combined with other types of support. The special issue is available in full to subscribers in Volume 17, number 3 of the Journal (please note that the cost of subscribing to the Journal may be counted as access agreement expenditure). Non-subscribers can read the following open access articles:
Foreword by Rachael Tooth, OFFA Head of Evidence and Good Practice: “Working together to solve complex problems”
Editorial by Professor Liz Thomas, Editor of the Students Financial Support Special Edition, Journal of Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning; independent researcher and consultant for higher education; Professor of Higher Education, Edge Hill University.
Research on students’ use of online financial information
Digital marketing agency Net Natives used digital behavioural research to investigate students’ use of online financial information, with advice from OFFA. The research, What, when and where are students searching?, found that students from more financially advantaged backgrounds are much more likely to access information about bursaries and scholarships than those from less advantaged backgrounds.
What is happening now?
In June 2015 OFFA commissioned a team led by Colin McCaig of the Centre for Education and Inclusion Research (CEIR) at Sheffield Hallam University to take this work forward and further improve evaluation and understanding of the impact of institutional financial support packages on student success. The project is developing:
- a common set of measures and survey tools for universities and colleges to use when collecting and reporting data on the impact of financial support on student success, to improve evaluation methods across the sector and make the outputs of that evaluation more comparable. These will be piloted during academic year 2015-16
- a guide to support higher education providers in using these tools and interpreting the outcomes.
This work will feed into OFFA’s 2017-18 access agreement guidance and the intention is that it will lead to longer-term improvements in evaluation and understanding through ongoing use of the common measures and survey tools by universities and colleges throughout the sector.
Project team
Principal Investigator
Colin McCaig, Principal Research Fellow, Centre for Education and Inclusion Research, Sheffield Hallam University
Quality Manager
Professor Jacqueline Stevenson, Head of Research, Sheffield Institute for Education, and Governing Council member and Chair of the Society for Research into Higher Education’s Research and Development Committee
Research Leads
Anna Mountford-Zimdars, Lecturer in Higher Education, King’s College London
Helen Carasso, University of Oxford
Hubert Ertl, Associate Professor of Higher Education, University of Oxford
Den Moore, Deputy Director of Student Administration, University of Oxford
Neil Harrison, Senior Lecturer in Education, University of the West of England
Professor Uvanney Maylor, Director, Institute for Research in Education, University of Bedfordshire
Advisors
Professor Rich Harris, Professor of Quantitative Social Geography, University of Bristol
Marie-Pierre Moreau, Reader in Education, University of Roehampton
Sarah Kerton, Higher Education Policy Consultant, National Union of Students (NUS)
Steering Group
Tony Hoare, University of Bristol (Chair)
Rachael Tooth, OFFA
Professor Liz Thomas, Edge Hill University
Ceri Nursaw, Nursaw Associates
Nick Hillman, Higher Education Policy Institute
Jane Artess, University of Derby
Professor Claire Callender, Birkbeck, University of London
Mark Gittoes, Higher Education Funding Council for England
Paul Wakeling, University of York
Mike Thompson, AimHigher West Midlands
John Selby, Chair of OFFA Advisory Group
Neha Agarwal, OFFA (in attendance)
Richard Shiner and Becka Wallbridge, OFFA (Secretariat)
Want more information?
For further information about this project contact Rachael Tooth, OFFA Head of Evidence and Good Practice (0117 931 7171, rachael.tooth@offa.org.uk)