Times Higher Education:
Larger bursaries 'boost students' chances of getting good degree
18 October 2016
The larger the bursary a student receives, the more likely they are to get a good degree, according to a major study. Researchers found that each additional £1,000 of financial aid awarded to undergraduates at nine English universities increased their chance of getting top marks (a first or a 2:1) by 3.7 percentage points, with about half of this owing to improved retention, and the rest attributable to higher test scores. Significantly, students from the most deprived backgrounds benefited the most, with the estimated impact of larger bursaries on the poorer half of the sample being about six times greater than the cohort as a whole. Undergraduates with higher prior attainment derived two to three times greater benefit than their course mates with lower school grades, according to Gill Wyness, lecturer in the economics of education at the UCL Institute of Education, and Richard Murphy assistant professor of economics at the University of Texas at Austin.
This article was published by the Times Higher Education on October 18, 2016
Link to article here
Related links
Richard Murphy webpage
Gill Wyness webpage
Education and Skills Programme webpage