Universities get extra £15m to help students with cost-of-living pressures

Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Robert Halfon, minister for skills, apprenticeships and higher education, said: “The Government recognises the additional cost-of-living pressures that have arisen this year and that have impacted students.” In a written ministerial statement on Wednesday, Mr Halfon added: “Today we are making a one-off reallocation of funding so we can add £15 million to this year’s student premium, enabling extra hardship awards to be made to tens of thousands of disadvantaged students. He said: “Without it, we are concerned this will have an increasing impact on students’ studies and wider mental health and wellbeing.” Dr Bradshaw added: “It is disappointing that the DfE has failed to deliver a meaningful increase to maintenance loans or take the opportunity to address some of the flaws in the forecasting process to ensure they keep up with rising costs, despite warnings that students would be left £1,500 worse off next year. “Reversing the real terms cut in the value of the loan since 2020/21 would be a simple fix that would provide much needed immediate support for living costs and would be paid back by the student.” Ben Waltmann, senior research economist at the IFS, said: “The most important part of today’s announcement is that the Government has allowed the large cuts to student support since 2020/21 to become baked in. “We need to look more closely at how well the current system is supporting students and what changes need to be made – currently the student maintenance package in England is at its lowest value in seven years.” Chloe Field, vice president for higher education at the National Union of Students, said: “The 2.8% increase in the maintenance loan for 2023/24 is woefully inadequate and will leave students over £1,500 worse off than they would have been if student support was tied to inflation.