Low-income students stand to lose out
Students from low-income families may suffer financially should Oxford widen its access, The Oxford Student has discovered. The maintenance bursaries scheme, introduced with the new £3,000 top-up fees, provides students from poorer backgrounds with up to £10,000 over three years, or £13,000 over four years.
The Oxford Student has learnt that if Oxford were to come into line with national admissions standards by improving proportions of students from low-income backgrounds, the bursary scheme could create severe financial difficulties for the university. The scheme is expected to cost around £7 million per year. However, only around 12 per cent of students across the whole university currently qualify for the full bursary.
This is well below the national average of students from low-income backgrounds, which according to the Department of Skills and Education (DfES) lies at 30 per cent. If the proportion of Oxford students from lower-income backgrounds were to correspond with the national average, it would cost the university over £20 million in bursaries alone. This would render the extra revenue of an estimated £20 million generated by charging the full £3,000 top-up fees irrelevant.
Undergraduate teaching currently operates at a deficit of £6,000 per student per year, indicating that money is not readily available to support the scheme. The university website states, “Anyone who qualifies will receive an Oxford Opportunity Bursary. There will be no cap on the number of Oxford Opportunity Bursaries available to students from low-income families who succeed in winning a place at Oxford.
A spokesperson for the university said, “The income of the university will be slightly raised by the introduction of higher fees, which means that some money can be moved across to what we already use for the bursary scheme.
“If the number of students from low-income backgrounds was to dramatically increase over the next few years, we would be forced to look at specific fundraising schemes to support the bursaries scheme and to ensure that everyone eligible receives it, as that is what we have promised. “We will need to look at fundraising overall in the next few years; we have a new pro-Vice Chancellor who is focusing on increasing the amount of money coming in.
Charlynne Pullen, Vice-President (Access and Academic Affairs) of the Student Union said, “The university has obviously financially assessed this scheme and has accounted for the current make-up of the student population, as we have no indication that this is suddenly going to change. “The point that Oxford is making is to encourage talented people from low-income backgrounds to continue applying despite the fees increase.
“However, we do already do a lot of access work with schools, and so there is no anticipation that this will make that much of a difference in terms of creating the kind of huge jump in numbers which would be necessary to cause problems.”
2nd Mar 2006