Education maintenance allowance evaluation with administrative data: the impact of the EMA pilots on participation and attainment in post-compulsory education

This report contains the findings of an evaluation of the impact of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) using administrative data. We analyse the effects of its initial piloting - and subsequent extension - on participation in full-time education at ages 16 and 17, and on educational achievement at ages 18 and 19. Furthermore, we conduct subgroup analysis to break down the overall effect by different background characteristics. This allows us to see how the impact of the EMA varies according to characteristics such as sex, ethnic group, and potential indicators of material deprivation and prior academic ability

Calcium Activation of Mitochondrial Respiration is Maintained in Heart Failure Despite Altered Mitochondrial Membrane Potential

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Social identification, widening participation and Higher Education: Experiencing similarity and difference in an English red brick university

In 2012, the UK government introduced the National Scholarship Programme - a scheme that aimed to ensure that young people from families with low household incomes would not be discouraged from entry into higher education by increases in tuition fees. Drawing on longitudinal evidence in the form of eighty semi-structured interviews conducted in an English Red Brick University over a three-year period, this paper uses Jenkins’ work on social identification to examine the process es by which these post-2012 undergraduates used and experienced the financial support made available to them as part of the Programme. The paper explores how the initially categorical label associated with being a student in receipt of financial assistance was variously understood and experienced as they moved through their degree. Not only did the additional finance allow students to avoid excessive part-time work, recipients also felt increasingly valued by the institution when they began to recognise how their financial circumstances differed from their peers, and that the university had made this provision for them. It remains to be seen whether these, more intangible, benefits of non- repayable financial support will transfer to the system of ‘enhanced’ loans that have subsequently replaced maintenance grants and the National Scholarship Programme

How did the latest increase in fees in England affect student enrolment and inequality?

This paper presents a first analysis of the increase of undergraduate tuition fees to £9,000 (€11.000) in English higher education in 2012. I use a semi-experimental research design to estimate the effect of the reforms, based on student enrolment data drawn from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Taking into account possible anticipation effects of the fee increase, I find that enrolment declined by 15 % in the treated groups as a result of the tuition fee increase. This number is almost three times higher than what previous studies have found, and may represent a serious long term cost for the English economy. The decline in enrolments is particularly pronounced for students in older age groups and students from the service class and the middle class. No effect is visible for students from the working class, indicating that the reforms did not lead to a much-feared increase in class bias in higher education enrolment. The reforms also seem not to have exacerbated ethnic inequality in higher education, as all ethnic groups were negatively affected by the reforms. These results are consistent with earlier research in the United States and the United Kingdom, although they expand our understanding of student price responsiveness in other important ways. The paper argues that younger and older students face different costs and benefits. Older students may be less certain about their benefits, and therefore be more sensitive towards price increases. The strong decrease in mature learners may require a policy response, taking into account these differing incentives

Restrictions into opportunities: how boundaries in the life course can shape educational pathways

This study explores relationships between experiences in initial education, subsequent life experiences/opportunities and the decision to return to education later in life. Semi-structured interviews with seven female returners to education, focused initially upon the women’s perceptions of their aspirations and motivations at various ages, how these related to the choices they felt they had available to them at different points in time, and their sense of agency. Subsequently, the interviewees considered the relationship between early educational experiences, post-school experiences, and their current choices. Thematic analysis of the interview transcripts led to the identification of four main themes: restrictions, opportunities, personal development, and an underlying theme of planning. Consideration of the relationships between these themes led to the conclusion that it was life experiences rather than initial education that both motivated and empowered the interviewees to take advantage of opportunities for higher education

Student budgets and widening participation: Comparative experiences of finance in low and higher income undergraduates at a Northern Red Brick University

Drawing on a thematic analysis of longitudinal qualitative data (ntotal = 118), this article takes a “whole student lifecycle” approach to examine how lower and higher income students at an English northern red brick university variously attempted to manage their individual budgets. It explores how students reconcile their income—in the form of loans, grants, and bursaries—with the cost of living. Four arenas of interest are described: planning, budgeting, and managing “the student loan”; disruptions to financial planning; the role of familial support; and strategies of augmenting the budget. In detailing the micro‐level constraints on the individual budgets of lower and higher income undergraduates, the article highlights the importance of non‐repayable grants and bursaries in helping to sustain meaningful participation in higher tariff, more selective, higher education institutions. It also supports an emerging body of literature that suggests that the continuing amendments to the system of funding higher education in England are unlikely to address inequality of access, participation, and outcome

Critical reflections on the benefits of ICT in education

In both schools and homes, information and communication technologies (ICT) are widely seen as enhancing learning, this hope fuelling their rapid diffusion and adoption throughout developed societies. But they are not yet so embedded in the social practices of everyday life as to be taken for granted, with schools proving slower to change their lesson plans than they were to fit computers in the classroom. This article examines two possible explanations - first, that convincing evidence of improved learning outcomes remains surprisingly elusive, and second, the unresolved debate over whether ICT should be conceived of as supporting delivery of a traditional or a radically different vision of pedagogy based on soft skills and new digital literacies. The difficulty in establishing traditional benefits, and the uncertainty over pursuing alternative benefits, raises fundamental questions over whether society really desires a transformed, technologically-mediated relation between teacher and learner

What the Minimum Income Standard Tells us About Living Standards in the United Kingdom

The Minimum Income Standard (MIS) research gives an insight into living standards in the United Kingdom, and provides a way of tracking the adequacy of incomes over time. As such it offers useful context for discus-sions of inequality. At the core of the research are deliberative groups held with members of the public who identify and discuss the goods and services that are considered necessary for a living standard that provides a socially acceptable minimum. Groups decide not only what is enough to maintain health and well-being, but also what is needed for social inclusion. This chap-ter begins with an outline of MIS before exploring what the qualitative data from the research tell us about how people conceptualise socially acceptable living standards. These data also reveal how particular items, opportunities and choices are considered important in enabling individuals to feel socially included and how that has changed over time. The chapter then looks at how this living standard relates to UK household incomes and at the adequacy of income relative to MIS, in the years following the recession. We identify the groups at greatest risk of having inadequate incomes and explore how this risk has changed during a period in which there has been a sustained decline in living standards. In combining qualitative and quantitative findings from a decade of research, this chapter provides rich insight into living standards and their relation to income within the United Kingdom