National Scholarship Programme

The primary purpose of the National Scholarship Programme (NSP) is to benefit individual students from disadvantaged backgrounds directly as they enter higher education (HE). It will apply to students entering HE from autumn 2012.

We administer the programme on behalf of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, which sets the overall policy and funding level.

2013-14 provisional allocations and guidance for institutions

Provisional allocations the 2013-14 and guidance to institutions on the operation and management of the NSP are now available.

Provisional allocations and guidance for institutions

About the programme

The programme has the following features:

It will provide a direct benefit to individual, eligible students.
Each eligible student will receive a benefit of not less than £3,000 (full-time and pro rata part-time to a minimum intensity of 25 per cent). This is a one-year benefit, not a recurrent, annual entitlement.
No more than £1,000 of the overall award is to be provided as a cash bursary.
The programme will not to be used to fund outreach programmes, which universities will continue to fund through alternative means.

The Government's contribution to the programme will be £50 million in financial year 2012-13, £100 million in 2013-14 and £150 million from 2014-15.

It is expected that those institutions wishing to charge above the 2012-13 basic fee level of £6,000 who are required to submit an access agreement to the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) will provide a matched contribution to the programme of at least the same value as the government contribution.

Initial programme announcement

Funding the programme

To allocate the funding available, we calculate the funds for each institution in direct proportion to the numbers of HEFCE-fundable home and EU students enrolled on its programmes.

In March we published the provisional allocations for the first year of the programme. We have now published the final allocations (see below).

Since April institutions have submitted access agreements to OFFA. These include information regarding the delivery of the programme and their matched contribution.

Institutions intending to charge £6,000 or less for their fees and therefore not submitting access agreements were asked to complete the addendum to the Widening Participation Strategic Assessment.

This addendum asked institutions to indicate if they wanted to opt in or opt out of the programme. Participation is not compulsory for institutions that do not intend to charge above £6,000 for any of their undergraduate fees from 2012-13.

A number of institutions have indicated that they will opt out of the programme for 2012-13. We will therefore redistribute funds accordingly. This means participating institutions may see an increase to their provisional allocation published in March.

Institutions will receive their full allocation in one payment in August 2012.