In 2007/08, the University spent over 拢2 million of its additional fee income on bursaries and scholarships for low income students and additional outreach activities to encourage students from non-traditional backgrounds to enjoy the huge benefits of a University education.Over 拢1.6 million of this money went as direct payments to our students and 1667 students received a University of Southampton bursary or scholarship.
So far in 2008/09, more than 2,700 students have benefited from bursaries and we have paid out 拢2.4 million. This figure will increase as we encourage students through our various initiatives to claim the funds to which they are entitled. Together with our outreach activity, our total expenditure in the current year will exceed 拢3 million.
Pro Vice-Chancellor, Professor Debra Humphris, comments: 鈥淲e at Southampton are committed to helping support students with financial difficulties and to ensuring that talented students from all backgrounds receive all the support we can provide to enable them to study on one of our degree programmes. Bursaries are just one means we have of helping students to consider a university education, and we also invest heavily in a wide range of well regarded widening participation and outreach activities.
鈥淲e have been working closely with our Students鈥� 聽Union and other key groups to encourage greater numbers of students to apply for our bursaries and scholarships, for example our 鈥榃ant More Lolly鈥� campaign (). Our initiatives in this area led to the University being short-listed by the Times Higher Education for its 2008 Outstanding Student Finance Support Award.鈥�