Providing information to students
What are OFFA’s expectations about the information provided on institutions’ websites?
It’s important that the student finance information on your website is clear and up to date so students can find out about bursaries and other financial support quickly and easily. You might want to look at our best practice guide Improving Information: HEIs’ provision of online financial information.
We expect you to:
- Update bursary and other student finance information on your website as soon as possible. We recommend that information for the following academic year is on your website by the end of September at the very latest so that prospective students can do their research before they make their UCAS applications.
- Make sure your bursary information on the Gov.uk student finance calculator is clear and up to date so students can find out about bursaries and other financial support quickly and easily. You can enter, view and maintain the information for your institution using the Financial Information Service run by the Student Loans Company.
- Make sure it is clear to prospective students how they can apply for a bursary. This is important even if you automatically assess students for their bursary eligibility using information provided on their student loan application form. If you rely on students agreeing to share their financial information with you, please make this clear.
- We also strongly encourage you to link as quickly as possible from your home page to student finance information. A ‘Fees and Funding’ or ‘Student Finance’ link direct from your home page is ideal.
- Be clear and concise. Use succinct headings to answer key questions. For example, when talking about bursaries, headings could be ‘What we offer’, ‘Are you eligible?’, ‘How to apply’, ‘When we will pay your bursary’ and ‘How to find out more’.
- Be consistent. It’s quicker and easier to navigate a site if links and menus are presented in the same format and in the same position throughout the site.
- Provide advice on budgeting. It’s easy for students to underestimate the cost of living, so examples of average/standard costs and simple budget calculators can be very helpful.
- Use case studies/student videos. Students identify with the experience of other students.
- Give simple explanations of terms such as bursaries, scholarships etc. Some students may not understand that bursaries are non-repayable, and are paid by individual institutions rather than the Government.
You may find our list of useful links for potential students helpful – many of the websites in the list provide resources that you may like to embed in your own site, such as student finance calculators and videos.
You may wish to consider…
We recognise that good information, advice and guidance (IAG) is important to under-represented students at all stages of the student lifecycle. Institutions’ access agreements must include an explicit commitment to publish clear and accessible information for existing and prospective students on fees, financial support and wider IAG. The Student Loans Company’s team of regionally based Student Finance Advisers provides support to practitioners in institutions aiming to promote effective IAG in a number of ways, including:
- bespoke face-to-face training and support for student services teams in various institutional departments either in their own working environment or through key partner training events. The training can cover the Student Loans Company’s core business functions of Assess, Pay and Repay and all aspects of the student journey, from the application process to the impact of students transferring, intercalating or withdrawing from their course. This would be of particular use to Student Services and Finance and Welfare departments. The Student Loans Company’s team of regionally based Student Finance Advisers also offer more generalised training which provides a broad overview of the student finance process for staff in Admissions and Marketing and Recruitment departments
- regular tailored training for both staff from Recruitment and Outreach teams and student ambassadors to enhance institutions’ programmes of pre-entry outreach activity. The Student Loans Company’s team of regionally based Student Finance Advisers are able to attend applicant visit days and host student finance workshops
- a referral service to help resolve individual cases.
For more information about these services, please visit the Student Finance England practitioner website.