New report: Care and Learning in Higher Education

We have a long history of supporting estranged and care experienced young people to access university, donating £16 million to this cause since 2012.

Now, we’ve partnered with the Unite Foundation to commission a new report from the Social Market Foundation (SMF), to identify what needs to be done to support more estranged and care experienced young people to go to university and succeed.

Care experienced and estranged students have long faced barriers to participating in Higher Education. Just 14% of care experienced young people go to university – less than a third of the proportion within the wider population (47%). And when they do get there, they’re less likely to complete their degrees or get a ‘good honours’ degree of a First or 2:1 than the average student.

To play our part in reducing the gap, we established the Unite Foundation in 2012 – the only UK charity to support both estranged and care experienced students, which provides an accommodation scholarship with Office for Students Tier 2 recognised evidence of impact. Since then, we’ve donated £16 million towards the charity, helping more than 800 estranged and care experienced young people to live rent-free at university.

But more can be done, and that’s why we’ve teamed up with the Unite Foundation to commission this new report from the SMF.

‘Care and Learning in Higher Education: How society and universities can support care experienced and estranged students to succeed’ explores existing data and evidence on the effectiveness of current interventions to support care experienced and estranged young people in accessing university, and features nine recommendations for government and universities to increase participation.

Here’s everything you need to know from the report.

Where the sector currently is

In addition to the challenges faced in going to university, there are obstacles when care experienced and estranged students arrive at university. These include financial difficulties, challenges in finding accommodation and struggles with mental health and stigma.

However, visibility of the topic has improved in recent years. In 2019, the Scottish government committed to providing a university place for every care experienced applicant that met minimum entry requirements. Three years later, the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care called for the proportion of English care experienced students to double by 2026, with particular focus on high tariff universities.

Support has also increased. Most universities now have financial support available and an accommodation guarantee available to these students; the report estimates that £10-15 million per year is spent on supporting these students.

There’s evidence that scholarships are helping to address the financial challenges these students face – but support is inconsistent and there’s a lack of evidence more widely into interventions to help them. And with the HE sector facing financial pressures, there are concerns that support could be cut.

Recommendations

Based on the evidence, the SMF has made nine recommendations, grouped into four areas – funding, data, access and responsibility.

The recommendations call on the government to:

• Provide institutions with £1,000 of grant funding for each care experienced or estranged student they enrol
• Reform Student Finance England to better reflect the fact that care experienced and estranged students need financial support 52 weeks a year
• Expand Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data to include data on estranged students
• Introduce ring-fenced funding to tutor care experienced pupils from years 1 to 11
• Prioritise care experienced pupils through personalised careers support at school
• Standardise local authority support and extend it for care leavers aged 25 and under at university

Universities are encouraged to:

• Sign up to the Care Leaver Covenant
• Work towards the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers (NNECL) Quality Mark
• Introduce a guaranteed offer scheme for care experienced and estranged pupils

High tariff universities are also recommended, with support from the Department for Education, to create targeted support programmes for top-performing care experienced students at GCSE so they have additional support as they apply for university.

At Unite Students, we’ve signed the Care Leaver Covenant as a show of our continuing commitment to care experienced and estranged young people. We look forward to supporting them in years to come.

You can download the report from the Social Market Foundation’s website, and read our Chief Executive Joe Lister’s thoughts in his blog on our website.