Student financial support: do you know what is available?

By Liam Burns, NUS President. Financial hardship support is available for university students, but reductions to the funding pot are cause for concern says Liam Burns.
Politicians and commentators often obsess over the number of people going into higher education, but forget that getting through a university’s door is just the start of the story. But we should be equally concerned about who can stay the course and make it through to the other side - it’s surely a self-defeating waste of public money, and talent, if a student is set up to fail and then has to drop out simply because they can’t make ends meet. I’ve spent a fair bit of time over the past few weeks examining the evidence from ourPound in Your Pocketresearch project on the financial pressures on students and their impact on individual wellbeing - not least the imperative to balance work and study in order to make ends meet, to avoid financial bailouts and to access postgraduate education. Read more...