MPs and peers want £700 million to support Covid-hit students

The Westminster government should create an emergency hardship fund that is more than double the current amount available for student support, a cross-party group of MPs and peers has said.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group for Students, which includes former Conservative higher education ministers Lord Willetts and Lord Boswell, said the fund should be used to refund rents for accommodation that could not be used because of the lockdown and to support students hit by losing their part-time work in the hospitality and retail sectors.

The group, let by Labour MP Paul Blomfield, called for £700 million for the fund, more than double the current £256 million providers are able to draw on from student premium funding.

The government did make a further £20 million available to support those who need it most. However, it has been pointed out that the student premium funding had already been cut by £16 million, so this was a boost of only £4 million.

“Universities and mission groups have told us that additional hardship funding, and increasing student premium funding, would help to address student concerns and target support where need is greatest,” the group says in a report.

According to the report, the additional funding would be “fairer and more effective” than any reduction in tuition fees. Universities have come under increasing pressure to consider tuition fee refunds if teaching falls short because of the pandemic crisis. The report goes on to say that although the current blended learning “cannot match the educational experience available in normal time”, fee refunds would not address student concerns.

Reimbursements would “not assist the majority of students whose fees are paid through the Student Loans Company as the refund would be made to the SLC”. Such a move would also reduce universities’ income and, therefore, hamper their students’ education, the report says.

Hardship support was the best way for the government to fulfil “its responsibility to sustain the universities sector during the crisis”, the report says. “We believe that the priority is to provide students with the financial assistance that they need now.”

Universities should focus on how to make up for lost learning opportunities and to enable access to facilities, the MPs add.

The report also calls for the creation of a “learning remediation fund” that would focus on replacing lost teaching and other learning experiences, such as field trips or networking.

This could include providing additional summer or autumn programmes for students graduating this year and would be particularly helpful for students with practical elements to their study, the report says.

The group also called for UK Research and Innovation to extend its studentships for postgraduate research students “in circumstances where lockdown has affected access to facilities and resources”.

Other recommendations for the government include the introduction of means-tested maintenance grants to assist the “Covid cohort” with the costs they face and to introduce measures that temporarily increase flexibility for student accommodation “to allow students to leave contracts they aren’t using more easily, and to reduce pressure on landlords”.

Mr Blomfield said that “after examining the huge amount of evidence that we received, we’ve agreed across parties on a bold call for the government to protect students’ education and support their incomes”.

“The pandemic has inflicted huge costs on all of us, and students cannot be neglected,” he said. “It’s a call for major action by the government, but it’s essential to protect future generations and our universities. I hope the universities minister will back these proposals.”

anna.mckie@timeshighereducation.com