Call for 'fairer' student bursaries

Published: Thursday, 18 September 2008, 10:03AM

A call has been made for a national bursary scheme to ensure all disadvantaged university students receive the financial help they need.

The Higher Education Policy Institute's (Hepi) review of bursaries highlighted "serious shortcomings" in the current bursary system.

It said that under present arrangements, hugely different bursaries were given to poor students with similar needs - a system that was unfair to both universities and the students themselves.

It argued that a national bursary scheme would provide funding to students on the basis of need, not where they study.

Bahram Bekhradnia, director of Hepi, said: "The problem with the present arrangement, from the students' point of view, is what a poor student receives as a bursary has nothing to do with what their needs are.

"Instead, it's got everything to do with how many other poor students there are studying at the same university. If the bursaries a university has to give has to be distributed between more people, that means they then have a smaller value."

Mr Bekhradnia said that under current arrangements, there was an incentive for bright poor students to go to a university with fewer poor students because it meant a bigger bursary.

The review has received backing from unions.

President Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, said: "A national scheme would eliminate bureaucracy and ensure that the millions of pounds of unspent cash for bursaries that went unspent last year reaches the students who desperately need financial support."

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