While the higher education sector continues to grapple with significant financial challenges in an increasingly tough socio-political context, it can be easy to lose sight of the positives.
Media scrutiny of institutions’ cost saving measures and the negative political rhetoric on the value of participating in university overshadow the positive contribution the sector makes to society, not least the critical role universities play in driving social mobility.
A core indicator of universities’ determination to make a positive impact on social mobility is their ongoing commitment to ring fence funds to enable students from underprivileged and underrepresented backgrounds to access higher education and successfully complete their studies.
Despite the huge budgetary pressures most universities are facing, many have continued to prioritise and develop their hardship offer over the last few years. The necessity of this action reflects the urgent need for policymakers to revise the student funding regime, moving away from the current regressive approach.
But the sector’s continued commitment to providing cost of living support to students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds also tells a broader, often overshadowed story about the true value of universities.
Money’s too tight not to mention
Over 50 per cent of students that come to Sheffield Hallam University live within a 50 mile radius. Of these, 25 per cent are from low participation neighbourhoods, often from some of the most deprived backgrounds, with around a third coming from households with a household income of under £10,000.
Follow these students forward a few years, and Sheffield Hallam delivers some of the best graduate outcomes in the sector, with 95 per cent of its graduates in work or further study 15 months after graduating. The university’s commitment to providing these students with tailored financial support enables them to complete their studies and secure a brighter future.
Sheffield Hallam is not alone in prioritising hardship support despite significant financial challenges. There’s now a recorded level of £739-million of yearly funding that universities in England alone are now collectively devoting to “access and participation investment” and that level has increased by £36 million since 2020–21. Of this, roughly 48 per cent (£354 million) is allocated to “financial support investment” for students.
The JS Group is annually reporting a significant growth in support funds to university students, identifying more than 800 forms of specialist support funding over last academic year alone. And cost of living initiatives are being better recognised through awards such as the recent Whatuni Student Choice Awards that invited universities to provide demonstrable evidence of such financial support programmes for its new special Cost of Living Award – of which Sheffield Hallam University was the overall award-winner.
Cost of living isn’t extracurricular
Removing financial barriers to student success is core to Sheffield Hallam’s purpose. Like many universities, it listens to feedback from its students about their changing money worries, financial pressures, and needs.
It has worked closely with Hallam SU to refresh and design new measures of financial and personal support at all stages of the student journey – from pre-university to the final stages of learning. It has also tailored its annual measures for those who are especially financially vulnerable.
In the last year alone, Sheffield Hallam has offered £3.6 million of scholarships and bursaries. It has provided a £175,000 hardship fund for supporting unexpected and emergency costs, shared £40,000 in food vouchers, £7,000 on learning technology for students, and £11,000 via a period product scheme. The students’ union has an activities inclusion fund – allowing students to receive support for joining extracurricular activities and so strengthening their engagement and belonging.
Hallam takes a unique approach to the disbursement of hardship funding, focussing on what a students’ plan to support their studies was, what went wrong, and what level of support they would benefit from (financially or otherwise). It deploys a sophisticated, data informed approach to calculating bursary support, ensuring that the students with the most barriers to success receive the largest sums.
Sheffield Hallam also provides in-person and online budget planning support for students. The latest SU annual cost of living report identified that students’ own confidence in managing money has now risen.
The sector is picking up the tab
Many other universities have reported significant uplifts in their student financial investments and the nature of their financial support in recent years.
Bucks New University devoted special funding to 2,617 students last year including a thrive bursary for students from low-income households and providing more than 15,000 free meals across its campuses. It cut prices in cafes by up to 30 per cent and froze rents. It also paid nearly £400,000 in wages to on-campus jobs and work-related opportunities.
The University of Brighton created a Brighton boost package of support for those from the most challenged financial backgrounds. It included significant first-year accommodation rent discounts, subsidised travel, laptop loans, free food and hygiene products. Just over £925,000 was allocated to students through the reduced rent and travel boost initiative.
Sheffield Hallam, Bucks New and Brighton are just three standout examples of how universities are stepping up when it comes to investment in student financial support – innovation is happening across the sector.
The social mobility mobile
Despite the negative rhetoric and media attention around the value of higher education, the evidence continues to show that going to university substantially improves life chances.
While the value debate will inevitably continue, it is worth noting that current metrics demonstrate that students themselves clearly understand the value of university.
The latest data from Whatuni.com indicates that despite criticism of universities, student satisfaction across UK universities now stands at 89 per cent – compared with 81.4 per cent in 2022. And student satisfaction has increased every year over the post-pandemic four-year period by an average of just under two per cent per year.
This analysis – which is based on the direct experiences and ratings of more than 42,000 current students – points to particular areas of the student experience that are driving student satisfaction: perceptions of lecturers and teaching quality; satisfaction levels with the student support; and satisfaction about the assistance given to students for their career prospects. The highest levels of student satisfaction are being recorded among postgraduate students (91.8 per cent) and international students (91.4 per cent).
Many prospective students are weighing up the value for money of university but the tracking evidence shows that those already experiencing university life are increasingly happier and more fulfilled by the support and opportunities that universities now provide.
With the sector’s record on supporting progression for disadvantaged students, policymakers would do well to better understand universities’ impact on social mobility and the indirect contribution this makes on economic growth. Perhaps doing so would result in a policy landscape more attuned to enabling the sector to thrive.
This article is published as part of Wonkhe’s partnership with IDP.
