Deserving poor? Are higher education bursaries going to the right students?

Gill Wyness

No 15-09, DoQSS Working Papers from Quantitative Social Science - UCL Social Research Institute, University College London

Abstract: After the abolition of student maintenance grants in 2016, higher education bursaries will be the major source of non-repayable aid for poor students in England. But are bursaries going to the students most likely to benefit from them – the bright poor – or are they simply subsidising low ability students? Using data collected from 22 universities, I show that, as a direct consequence of the decentralized nature of the bursary system, there are vast inequalities in aid receipt among poor students. Nevertheless, I find that the brightest, poorest students tend to receive the most bursary aid, suggesting the system is working efficiently. My analysis also shows that the students most likely to drop out or perform poorly in their degrees are those from disadvantaged backgrounds, with weak A levels. This suggests that these students could gain more from bursary aid if it was coupled with academic support.

Keywords: Widening Participation; Higher Education Funding Policies; Higher Education Bursaries; Decentralisation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I22 I28 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-10-14
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