Poor students win universities funds

UNIVERSITIES THAT attract students from poor backgrounds are to be rewarded with extra funds, under higher education budget settlements announced yesterday.

They have been allocated shares of a pounds 20m fund set up to promote university entry among under-represented groups. Funding officials have drawn up a sophisticated social map of Britain, based on postcodes, to determine which students enter universities from deprived areas, and reward those academics who do most to widen access.

Under the scheme, universities would get 5 per cent extra for each student recruited from a deprived area to pay for extra support and efforts to widen the appeal of higher education. The Higher Education Funding Council for England, which determines university grants, announced the move alongside a pounds 75m drive to recruit an extra 45,000 students into university - part of Tony Blair's pledge to increase higher and further education numbers by 500,000 before 2002.

Overall, universities received a 2.4 per cent increase in funding, slightly less than the rate of inflation but in line with the Government's pledge to restrict annual cuts to no more than 1 per cent of universities' funding per student.

Brian Fender, chief executive of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, which determines university grants, said universities were generally in good financial health. He said: "It is still quite tough managing an institution and it's likely to remain so but the general state is that universities are in very good health and their rather better funding will help them achieve their various objectives."

Union leaders warned that 28 universities faced real-terms cuts of up to 2 per cent. David Triesman, general secretary of the Association of University Teachers, said: "Where in this settlement are the much-proclaimed commitments to quality and fairness to staff? Not in the big print, not in the small print. Higher education is asked to soldier on in survival mode."