Extra £50 million for English hardship funds ‘a sticking plaster’

The Westminster government’s announcement of an additional £50 million of hardship funding for students in England is little more than a “sticking plaster”, unions have said.

The support, announced on 2 February by the universities minister, Michelle Donelan, comes on top of the £20 million grant that was announced in December.

The Department for Education said the funding could be used to help students facing additional costs for alternative accommodation, loss of employment or extra bills related to accessing teaching online.

The funding will be distributed by the Office for Students to universities, who may allocate it to students.

But unions said the funding did not go far enough, noting that if the government were to provide support during the Covid pandemic on a level equivalent to Wales, more than £700 million would be needed.

Although Westminster has already distributed £256 million in student premium funding this year, which can be used for student support, £700 million is the figure that a cross-party group of MPs and peers called for in a report last week.

Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union, said it “should not have taken students queueing for food banks, or waves of rent strikes, for the government to start acknowledging the scale of the problem”.

“Small-scale funding packages like this are simply a sticking plaster and not the answer to the widespread problems facing the sector,” Dr Grady said. “The government needs to go further and provide proper funding to avoid irreparable long-term damage to the sector’s reputation.”

Larissa Kennedy, president of the National Union of Students, said the additional funding “will not be enough to tackle the scale of the issue”.

“The pandemic has exposed the flaws at the core of our education system – it functions at the expense of students’ mental health and well-being, and through our financial exploitation. Many students will still be paying rent for housing they can’t access or can’t afford – to deliver true economic justice, the Treasury must underwrite this,” Ms Kennedy said.

The DfE said it had encouraged universities and accommodation providers to follow the lead of those that had already offered rent rebates to students who need to stay away from their term-time address while face-to-face teaching is suspended.

Ms Donelan said the additional support would provide “real, tangible help for those students struggling financially as a result of the pandemic”. She added that the government would “continue to prioritise a full return to education as soon possible, in line with public health advice”.

Alistair Jarvis, chief executive of Universities UK, described the additional funding as a “positive step”.

“While the additional funding is welcome, the government must also acknowledge that student hardship is just one of many increasingly difficult issues facing students, universities and staff at this time. As the serious mental health impact of the pandemic continues to be felt, universities need further funding to alleviate the substantial increases in demand that university well-being and support services are experiencing,” Mr Jarvis said.

“Although university staff are making huge efforts to offer high-quality online learning, the government should provide support that recognises that students are missing out on the wider student experience that they would benefit from in a normal year.”

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com