Some students need financial support to stay the course.
Last week the Office for Fair Access to higher education said it had found no evidence that bursaries stopped students from dropping out of university. This is not the same as saying that bursaries do not influence retention, however, and there are good reasons to believe that they do help to keep students’ opportunities open.
Deciding to drop out of university usually involves a range of factors. Will a bursary make a student less likely to struggle academically? Not necessarily, though individual institutions will want to look at their own data. Some universities observe that bursaries help indirectly through reducing hours spent in part-time jobs and leaving more time for study. However, common sense says that a bursary is unlikely to stop a student from realising that a course is not what she expected or from being homesick.
Prior academic attainment is the most significant factor in determining whether a student will graduate, as the study confirmed. It also identified a rather less welcome finding—that a student’s household income is also a significant factor—although this is, of course, simply a continuation of the pattern exhibited from primary school onwards, and separate studies show that gender, age and ethnicity also affect attainment.
In general the report found that students with higher bursaries have higher continuation rates than do those with lower bursaries. But higher tariff institutions, which offer on average higher bursaries, do not in themselves make students more likely to continue; rather students continue at a higher rate because they enter with higher grades.
There are other factors to consider, too. For example the report does not take into consideration students’ likely living costs. Those who attend more prestigious universities tend to travel further in order to do so. The higher bursaries offered by these universities may at best compensate for the cost of travel and living independently.
The primary aim of a bursary is to help students meet the cost of university study. Students spend their means-tested bursaries on groceries, not grouse hunts. The fact that, over the period included in this report, students are increasingly choosing to study locally and live at home suggests that financial factors do influence decisions. It would be regrettable if pressure on universities to reduce bursaries amplified this trend.
During focus groups held in February at my own institution, the University of Nottingham, students—most of whom are accumulating a fees debt of £9,000 a year—were vehement that the bursaries they received enabled them to cope financially and worry less. Bursary money left over after paying the bills enabled them to participate in extra-curricular activities, to develop their employability and to socialise with other students. In short, bursaries help lower-income students experience university in a similar way to their better-off peers. My colleague Michelle Haynes and I are currently surveying students on the impact of bursaries on their choices about university and their life as undergraduates, and will be able to present detailed data soon.
Studies by Mary Stuart of the University of Lincoln and others have shown that students from under-represented groups are less likely to make use of extra-curricular opportunities and university services, and that this can be as a result of family and community commitments, living at home or needing to work. So while universities may indeed need to spend more on retention and employability, they also need to ensure that students can be present to benefit.
Given that bursaries cost a lot of money, it is right to investigate whether financial support plays a role in preventing drop outs. The Office for Fair Access report prompts universities to question assumptions and look carefully at their own bursary arrangements and retention data. It does not, in itself, present a case for changing bursaries nationally.
Penelope Griffin is head of widening participation at the University of Nottingham and a member of the Office for Fair Access’s advisory group.