World Access to Higher Education Day: Thank you for your continued support

Since 2008, we have awarded 130 scholarships to the students who needed them most. Funded by your generous donations and the work of our Philanthropy Officer and wider Alumni Office, together we have helped keep students in higher education.

Thanks to your continued support, we are able to help some of the students who are most in need. But, every year we receive more scholarship applications than we can fund. Since 2008, we have been unable to fund 556 applications for support from students facing a range of financial situations.

Our students apply for our scholarships to support their studies for a variety of reasons.

Students might be:

• struggling to afford the cost of commuting home to continue their caring responsibilities
• estranged from their families and struggling to stretch their student loans and part-time jobs to afford university essentials
• worrying about a reduced income after leaving full-time work to pursue their university degree
• juggling child-care and university life
• experiencing a dramatic change in their circumstances

Whatever their personal situations, together we help our scholarship recipients continue their courses. Unsuccessful applicants are nearly twice as likely to leave their course, compared to only 7.7% of our successful applicants.

As someone who has already enjoyed their time spent in higher education, you’ll know the value of your time studying at York St John and how it has benefited your career.

A massive thank you

In the past 11 years, including two generous gifts left to us in Wills, you’ve donated nearly £100,000 towards our scholarship fund. That’s the equivalent of 30, three-year scholarships. Your donations might have made the difference between a student continuing their studies, or withdrawing due to financial constraints. Now that’s something to celebrate!

Whilst we can’t tell you exactly how our scholarship recipients spend their scholarship money, we know our applicants wouldn’t apply if they didn’t need the money thanks to our application criteria and process.

Attending university is expensive. This includes the big costs like housing, commuting and equipment. But there are also a lot of little costs too, and we all know how the little things can really add up! Together, we help our scholarship recipients pay for the big things, and the small things.

Your continued generosity helps us continue supporting the higher education of some of our fantastic students. So from our scholarship recipients and our Fundraising and Alumni Team, thank you.

An educated guess

We don’t know how our scholarship recipients spend their money, because we don’t ask! But, based on student applications, and student testimonies, we can hazard an educated guess that money is spent on:

• Professional workwear for work placements, including student teachers and students on health courses
• A bike, helmet and lock to cut down on the cost of getting the bus
• Sketchbooks, canvases, paints and drawing pencils for art students
• Books for reading lists – did you know that first year English Literature students buy The Norton Anthology of English Literature at a cost of around £90?*
• A winter coat because they’ve outgrown the one they bought when they were 17
• A bag of potatoes to contribute to their Flat Christmas Dinner
• A new railcard so they can get cheaper train tickets
• A pair of noise-cancelling headphones to help them concentrate when they’re doing their work
• A new laptop, enabling them to use up-to-date software and complete work quickly

* Price taken for a new copy of the latest edition from Waterstones. Students usually buy the full anthology as it is recommended to make it easier to annotate and as set texts range across all 6 volumes. You can view the prices of both halves of the anthology here and here.

The big costs

In York, students can expect to pay between £100-150 rent a week, that’s at least £5200 a year! Whilst this might at first seem fairly reasonable, this figure often doesn’t include bills and is usually for a bedroom in a shared house with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities. But it’s not just housing that can be a big cost.

Whilst the maximum student loan available for a York St John student is £9,488, the national average is approximately £5,640 a year. Even for students eligible for the highest student loan (students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds), this leaves those students with just £4288 a year to pay for their utilities, other bills, food, travel, equipment, clothing and any unexpected costs. That’s a budget of £357.33 a month to pay for everything except rent.

For students who receive more than the national average, say £7000, but less than the maximum loan amount, this would leave them with just £1800 after paying their rent. That’s just £150 a month to pay for everything except their rent.

During the pandemic, students (like many of us) worked from home. This meant that the technology divide was even more apparent between those that had laptops, computers or tablets that could run the necessary software, and those who didn’t. It also brought the workplace into our homes, or in the case of many students, their bedrooms.

One scholarship recipient from 2020 told us:

Returning to education in the middle of a global pandemic at nearly 50 years old and struggling with disability, debt and the benefits system, may seem to some foolish…At Christmas I had almost given up. I had a 12 year old laptop that wouldn’t run the course software, using Teams to learn online when Teams wouldn’t really work. The DWP was taking part of my student finance and the DSA forced lots of equipment I didn’t want or need which I had to part fund with money I didn’t have. I just could not see how I could continue with my studies. 

With this scholarship I can now get a up to date computer and for me that is a huge step forward. In the past three months I have gone from ‘can we pay the rent if I stay at UNI’ to ‘I can get the tools I need to work harder’. So thank you to everyone who makes this scheme possible, you have given me a chance and the tools, I won’t waste it.

R applied for our Welcome Back to Education scholarship in their first year as a Product Design student, and have since progressed into their second year.

The _^small costs

It’s the little things that add up, but it’s also the little costs that can be hardest to budget for. Whilst big costs like rent or a new laptop may be daunting, they can be easier to anticipate and plan for. But, for many students, university life is full of the little costs. This could be a few pounds for a coffee at the Students’ Union to meet with a new friend, a quarter of their usual food budget for a takeaway pizza with course friends, or a new umbrella because trudging through the rain for 20 minutes is no-one’s idea of fun.

One of last year’s scholarship recipients told us:

By receiving this scholarship my financial burden will have been greatly eased. Not having family to rely on often means that money is more stressful and much more of a priority, often over assignments. The extra money will allow me to be able to prioritise my workload over earning money much more often and even give me the chance to go out and spend money with friends, not just on bills. Whilst this is not important to some, living a new city with no friends or family can often be isolating; having a spare £10 to go for a coffee with someone new is a huge thing for me and will allow me to set down new roots and enjoy my university degree with much less stress. 

A applied for our Enabling Education scholarship in their first year as a Law Student, and have since progressed into their second year.

Accessing Higher Education

As an alum of York St John, you know how much higher education can change your life. But we know that accessing higher education is often dependent on being able to afford it. With high tuition fees, student loans that don’t always cover the rent, and individual circumstances that make university life difficult, we know how important it is to support students financially to help them continue their courses at York St John.

If you don’t have enough money to buy a laptop to run the course software, or any way of meeting new people in a new city, we know students might feel like giving up, or else might be so discouraged that they feel they have to.

Our scholarships help provide a financial buffer – £1000 a year doesn’t even cover 3 months rent in York – so that our students can access all that a Higher Education provides. Thanks to your generosity, we continue to make higher education accessible for more people.

More information

You can find out more about our scholarships on our website. To find out what else York St John is doing to improve access to Higher Education, please visit this webpage.

If you would like to donate to our scholarship fund to continue helping students, please visit our JustGiving page, or email alumni@yorksj.ac.uk for more information.

To learn more about student loans, you can read this easy guide on Save The Student which was updated to reflect students applying for student finance in 2021.