The recent Civitas report on care leavers presented a fascinating breakdown of the distribution of care leavers in UK higher education institutions – which is extremely uneven.
The report also highlighted the significant challenges care experienced people face in accessing and succeeding in higher education. Worryingly, similar to most other indicators of access and outcome inequality, there does not seem to be any meaningful progress towards closing these gaps.
There is also good evidence that interventions which target the financial insecurity many care experienced students face can effectively reduce these inequalities of access and outcome. And for this reason, many providers seek to offer direct financial support to help support their needs.
The actual definition of “care experienced student” – and it is worth noting that the government and regulator use different terms here – varies across the sector. As such the financial support available also varies from provider to provider, with different eligibility criteria being used.
