Current status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 6 December 2007
To ask the Scottish Executive whether it will provide details of its plans to move from loans to grants for part-time students.
I am pleased to announcethe details of our new support for part-time students studying in highereducation (HE) for academic session 2008-09.
We will introducea £500 part-time HE fee grant from academic year 2008-09 for all new and existingstudents who earn £18,000 or less, and who are studying at 50% or more of a full-timecourse. This will replace the current £500 loan and will be delivered through asimplified ILA Scotland model.
People who chooseto study part-time have very different support needs and any improved package offinancial support must recognise these differences. We believe that colleges anduniversities are best placed to assess these individual needs. We therefore intendto increase the amount of funding allocated to institutions’ hardship funds by £1million annually. This additional discretionary support will enable institutionsto provide more flexible support for part-time students, and can be used for studycosts, travel costs and child care costs, based on individual need rather than fixedincome thresholds.