19th November 2012 9:00
By Blue Tutors
A report released this week by the Institute for Fiscal Studies has concluded that a government scheme aimed at helping the poorest students go to university is unlikely to be effective. The £50m National Scholarship Programme is designed to encourage students from disadvantaged background to apply to university, but critics say it is too complex to succeed.
The programme was introduced after tuition fees were raised to up to £9000 a year, but after studying the way in which the scheme would work at more than 90 universities, the IFS say the plan is fatally weakened by uncertainties and complexity. The scheme is being administrated in different ways by different universities, and the report revealed significant variation in the format and amount of support available to students.
Some universities are using parental income as a base measure, some neighbourhood statistics, and some academic records. There are many different characteristics taken into account in different universities, which means that the scheme has little hope of providing fair access to poorer students, the report concluded.