Part-time Students And part-time Study In Higher ... - Universities UK

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• 49 per cent of lone parents.Next students were asked about student loans. They were not particularly supportive of them as atool for improving student support. Some 38 per cent of all students agreed with the statement “Ifinterest free loans were available to cover my tuition fees and were only repayable once I hadcompleted my course and I was earning over £15,000 a year, I would take one out”, 44 per centdisagreed while the remaining 18 per cent were undecided (Appendix 1 Table A4.1)The students most supportive of loans, who were most likely to report that they would take one out,were those with low incomes including:• 49 per cent with personal incomes of less than £15,499 a year (compared with 38% of thosewith incomes between £15,500 and £19,999, and just 19% with incomes over £50,000);• 47 per cent in part-time employment (compared with 35% in full-time jobs and 44% withoutjobs);• 47 per cent with no qualification or a Level 1 qualification – the lower their entry qualificationthe more likely they were to agree (compared with 31% with a postgraduate qualification and33% with a degree);• 46 per cent in the lowest occupations (compared with 41% in intermediate level occupationsand 36% with managerial and professional occupations).4.4 ConclusionsThe optimum tuition fee price estimated to maximise student participation for a course eachacademic year was about £600, and for those taking a first degree it was slightly higher at around£700. And, this price remained unchanged even when taking into account the potential availabilityof income contingent student loans, means-tested grants, or a mixture of loans and grants. This isbecause for most students the price at which the course would become too expensive was abovethe optimum price.£800 was the median tuition fee actually paid by the students surveyed while the average was£821, which suggests that either current fees levels have been set just above the optimum level inorder to maximise participation, or that the optimum level of fees is partly determined by theamount of fees paid.The optimum price also is roughly equivalent to the fees for 0.5 FTE for a first degree at currentprices. If part-time fees are to be linked pro-rata to future full-time fees of £3,000, they would haveto rise well above the optimum price found in this study, which may affect participation levels.Although the optimum price remained unaffected by the potential availability of different types ofstudent support, that was not the case for the average price at which the course would become tooexpensive to consider taking – £1,666. This average price rose by £100 with the availability of anincome contingent loan for tuition fees or a £1,000 means-tested grant, and by £169 with a mixtureof a grant and loan.Part-time students and part-time study: Strand 3 Universities UK 57
Just over one in five students thought that financial support for part-time students adequate, butthey were unsupportive of income contingent loans with only 38 per cent willing to take one out, ifavailable.An estimated 77 per cent of the students in this study were ineligible for a course or fee grant – themain sources of student support to which part-time students are entitled. Of those eligible, 14 percent would have received full grants and 9 per cent partial grants.Neither of these grants covered the majority of eligible students’ full costs. Some 58 per cent ofstudents incurred course costs exceeding the maximum course grant of £250 while 53 per werecharged tuition fees that exceeded the maximum value of the 2005/06 fee grants. Even withenhanced grants for 2006/07, 28 per cent of students still would have had fees in excess of thegrant.Part-time students and part-time study: Strand 3 Universities UK 58
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Part-time students and part-timestu
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TablesTable 1.1: Student support ..
Page 7 and 8: (35% compared with 12%); and two an
Page 9 and 10: 1 IntroductionThis report is about
Page 11 and 12: • all three bands of the fee gran
Page 13 and 14: 1.4 MethodsAn online web-based surv
Page 15 and 16: Table 1.2: Socio-economic character
Page 17 and 18: Table 1.3: Institutional characteri
Page 19 and 20: 2 Reasons for studying2.1 Why stude
Page 21 and 22: Figure 2.2: Percentage of students
Page 23 and 24: • By far the most frequently cite
Page 25 and 26: • Those students incurring the lo
Page 27 and 28: Table 3.2: Amount of course/tuition
Page 29 and 30: − on short courses lasting one ye
Page 31 and 32: Table 3.4: Full-time equivalent lev
Page 33 and 34: • By contrast, in Woodley’s (20
Page 35 and 36: towards a qualification (62%) and o
Page 37 and 38: 3.2.2 Who pays the other course cos
Page 39 and 40: • Of the total costs, 59 per cent
Page 41 and 42: Table 3.9: Average total costs by s
Page 43 and 44: 3.1.1), the majority (71%) of stude
Page 45 and 46: 3.4 Students’ incomeThese expendi
Page 47 and 48: 4 Attitudes to the costs of study a
Page 49 and 50: Figure 4.2 indicates that such a lo
Page 51 and 52: Figure 4.4: Cumulative percentages
Page 53 and 54: However, there were significant dif
Page 55 and 56: A further 16 per cent of the survey
Page 57: Table 4.2: Percentage of students s
Page 61 and 62: higher proportion of students than
Page 63 and 64: in five (22%) students disagreed wi
Page 65 and 66: Figure 5.3: Percentage of students
Page 67 and 68: Table 5.1: Where students study: Me
Page 69 and 70: 5.5.1 Travel to and from university
Page 71 and 72: 6 The long view6.1 Course’s value
Page 73 and 74: were intending to go for promotion,
Page 75 and 76: Taylor, C (2006) Graham Review of P
Page 77 and 78: Table A2.2: Percentage of students
Page 79 and 80: Table A4.1: Attitudes to student su
Page 81 and 82: 9 Appendix 2 - Technical report9.1
Page 83 and 84: surveys the data is not able to inf
Page 85 and 86: Data AnalysisFollowing the completi
Page 87 and 88: Table A3: Qualification aim - compa
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