Higher grants ‘should be part of wider new deal’ for low-income students

Details on new maintenance grants were released and met with disappointment last week: they will be worth just £1,000 per year, and only for those with household incomes at or below £25,000 per year.

Maintenance grants are non-repayable, or partly-payable grants offered to full-time higher education students in the UK. They are supplied to help students from disadvantaged financial backgrounds with accommodation and other living costs.

According to the UK government’s official website, its approach to means-testing students based on household income aims to ensure that students receive the largest maintenance grants in their first and second years of study.

Not only is the low value of the grants raising concern, but also the extent of accessibility

The government’s commitment to increasing maintenance loans every year in line with forecast inflation is also highlighted.

The newly introduced grants will only be available to students whose courses align with the government’s industrial strategy.

Although the courses have not yet been specified, Labour has taken a similar approach with the Lifelong Learning Entitlement – where only courses in fields like computing, engineering, mathematical sciences, and healthcare are deemed eligible for modular funding.

[Maintenance grants] could act as a […] catalyst for a more holistic student support package

Graeme Atherton, associate pro vice-chancellor for regional engagement at UoWL

Not only is the low value of the grants raising concern, but also the extent of accessibility, which could increase existing stigma and barriers faced by students on humanities and arts courses.

Experts suggest that although the new grants are low in value, they are an important start to reintroducing the principle of maintenance grants, which were scrapped altogether in England by the Conservative government in 2016.

Graeme Atherton, associate pro vice-chancellor for regional engagement at the University of West London, believes the introduction of maintenance grants “could act as a […] catalyst for a more holistic student support package”.

Billy Huband Thompson, head of research and policy at the Sutton Trust, told Times Higher Education: “In future, we hope to see an extension of maintenance grants to all students from low-income backgrounds”, and that students from all backgrounds “should be able to make choices about their studies based on their interests and aspirations, rather than on affordability”.