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Written question asked by Rob Wilson (Conservative) on Friday, 5 October 2007, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 8 October 2007. It was answered by Bill Rammell (Labour) on Wednesday, 24 October 2007 on behalf of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills.

Students: Finance

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills what the cost of student grants was in each of the last 15 years; and what the estimated cost is for each of the next three years.
Answer

The available data are given in the table.

Expenditure on student grants¹ for maintenance: this excludes tuition fee remission grant and special grants for vulnerable students. Students domiciled in England and Wales academic years 1992/93 to 2004/05. Students domiciled in England academic years 2005/06 to 2006/07
Academic year Expenditure (£ million)
1992/93² 1,046
1993/94² 1,202
1994/95² 1,159
1995/96² 1,075
1996/97² 948
1997/98² 932
1998/99² 617
1999/2000² 347
2000/01² 119
2001/02² 31
2002/03² n/a
2003/04² n/a
2004/05³ 97
2005/06³ 168
2006/074 462
¹ Data do not include tuition fee remission grants or supplementary grants and allowances; eg for students with disabilities, students with dependents, single parent students, those incurring certain travel costs and those who have recently left care.
² Data prior to 2004/05 refers to Mandatory Award scheme students. These arrangements applied to students who entered HE up to 1997/98 who received support for maintenance through means-tested grants. Data were not collected for mandatory award students in 2002/03 and subsequent years because of the low numbers of students involved. These figures are on an England and Wales basis.
³ In 2004/05 and 2005/06, data refer to Student Support Scheme Students (students entering from 1998/99 who received support for living costs mainly through loans which are partly income-assessed) in receipt of a full or part Higher Education Grant (HEG) which was introduced for new students entering from 2004/05. 2004/05 data covers England and Wales, 2005/06 covers England. Separate England data are not available for earlier years.
4 The 2006/07 figure is provisional England data covering the HEG and the new Maintenance Grant and Special Support Grant introduced in September 2006.
Sources:
DFES F503G survey of local authorities, Student Loans Company (SLC)

Expenditure provision for student grants for maintenance in financial year 2007-08 for English domiciled students is £568 million. It is not possible to provide a FY 2007-08 figure on an academic year basis.Detail on specific areas of funding for the Spending Review 2007 period is not available at present, but will be available in the near future.The drop in the number of students receiving a grant from 1998/99 onwards reflects the fact that maintenance grants were replaced by loans for new students, therefore only existing students continued to receive a maintenance grant.The large rise in the figures shown for 2005/06 and 2006/07 reflects the fact that the Higher Education Grant was introduced in 2004/05 for new students and therefore covered two cohorts in 2005/06. In 2006/07 the HEG was replaced by the Maintenance Grant and Special Support Grant.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
155662; 465 c443-4W
Session
2006-07
Subjects
Finance Students
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk