Chamber and committees

Young Students Bursary Awards are made to young, full-time students undertaking a properly validated higher education course. They are, therefore, made on an academic year and not a financial year basis. The average award for academic year 2001-02 was £1,366. The Young Students' Bursary is provided as an entitlement based on the level of parental income. The average value of awards, therefore, reflects the average value of parental income among young, full-time students.

Mature Students' Bursaries are awards made on a discretionary basis by higher education institutions. The Scottish Executive provides general guidance on the eligibility criteria for the bursaries to the institutions. The bursaries are primarily intended to help mature students with the cost of registered or formal child care, housing and excess travel costs.To be eligible to apply for a bursary, students must be classified as mature for the purposes of student support i.e. they must be aged over 25 on the first day of the first academic year of the course, or have been married by the first day of the first academic year of the course or have been self supporting (from earnings or benefits) for any three years before the first day of the first academic year of the course. They must have entered a course of full-time higher education in or after session 2001-02 and be eligible for tuition fee support. They must also have applied for the full amount of student loan to which they are entitled.

Regulation 8 of The Graduate Endowment (Scotland) Regulations 2001 specifies that liable graduates may either pay the full amount of the endowment on the due date or take out a student loan under the existing income contingent loan scheme. Details of the collection arrangements are currently being finalised.

The information requested is not yet available. The guidance provided to institutions requests that they provide information to the Student Awards Agency for Scotland on the awards made from their Mature Students' Bursary Fund allocations by 30 September each year. The returns will have to be collated and analysed before the information requested can be provided.

The first payments under the graduate endowment scheme will be received in April 2005.

The Graduate Endowment is an integral part of the new student support arrangements introduced for Scottish domiciled students studying full-time higher education courses in Scotland from 2001-02 including bursaries for young students from low income families. Liable graduates pay the graduate endowment in recognition of the higher education benefits they have received, including the financial support provided to the publicly funded institution at which the graduate studied. Because Scottish ministers do not provide financial support to institutions in other parts of the UK in respect of Scottish domiciled students who study there, such students are not liable to pay the graduate endowment. It would not have been fair to young Scottish domiciled students studying in Scotland if we extended the bursary part of the new support arrangements to Scottish domiciled students elsewhere in the UK without also extending liability for the graduate endowment. Under Standing Orders rule 13.5, any member of the Scottish Executive may answer a written question, other than those for the First Minister, Lord Advocate or the Solicitor General for Scotland.

Scottish domiciled higher education students will have their application for student support, including the student loan, assessed by the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS). Information on individual students' loan eligibility is then passed to the Student Loans Company (SLC) which provides the appropriate level of loan and manages the individual students' accounts. Other aspects of the student support package are provided by SAAS and are not repayable unless an overpayment has occurred.Prior to 1999 eligibility for student loans was assessed by individual colleges and universities. Information on the loans taken out by students who started courses before that date will, therefore, be identified by SLC on the basis of their place of study and not their place of residence. The average level of debt will also be dependent upon a number of variable factors such as the fact that students do not always borrow the maximum amount available to them, sub-degree courses at HNC/HND level will attract student loan funding and that degree courses will be completed at different times of the year. Any average would be subject to frequent change dependent upon each individual student's behaviour and length of study at higher education level. To provide the information requested would, therefore, be time consuming and incur a disproportionate cost.

Institutions receive their allocation of the Mature Students' Bursary Fund in a single instalment at the beginning of the academic year; the amounts are, therefore, the same for both the financial and academic years.

Further Education Colleges	2001-02	2002-03
Aberdeen College of Further Education	176,050	210,492
Angus College	101,628	109,812
Anniesland College	35,206	48,635
Ayr College	126,728	161,946
Banff and Buchan College of Further Education	33,455	38,695
Barony College of Further Education	278	4,061
Borders College	35,045	26,710
Cardonald College	76,331	133,965
Central College of Commerce	83,355	121,599
Clackmannan College of Further Education	18,229	32,928
Clydebank College	118,889	150,124
Coatbridge College	143,846	152,611
Cumbernauld College	42,260	47,519
Dumfries and Galloway College	76,712	89,773
Dundee College	169,423	210,288
Edinburgh's Telford College	76,697	126,627
Elmwood College	31,036	44,808
Falkirk College of Technology	135,492	188,244
Fife College of Further and Higher Education	123,596	151,964
Glasgow College of Building and Printing	74,984	96,827
Glasgow College of Food Technology	29,517	47,466
Glasgow College of Nautical Studies	48,656	78,011
Glenrothes College	43,593	48,339
James Watt College of Further and Higher Education	268,917	393,790
Jewel and Esk Valley College	57,047	80,095
John Wheatley College	10,648	16,200
Kilmarnock College	110,602	100,277
Langside College	80,566	95,031
Lauder College	71,516	75,172
Motherwell College	184,215	225,052
Newbattle Abbey	0	0
North Glasgow College	59,472	67,641
Oatridge Agricultural College	6,428	9,445
Reid Kerr College	219,137	278,235
South Lanarkshire College	54,643	67,641
Stevenson College	46,660	89,382
Stow College	55,748	85,785
West Lothian College	47,106	72,102

Higher Education Institutions	2001-02	2002-03
Aberdeen University	88,243	169,584
Bell College of Technology	99,802	130,754
Dundee University	85,039	177,970
Edinburgh College of Art	2,746	18,090
Edinburgh University	88,767	176,782
Glasgow Caledonian University	83,610	283,128
Glasgow School of Art	11,583	16,934
Glasgow University	91,247	196,358
Heriot-Watt University	21,301	59,266
Napier University	62,879	110,342
Queen Margaret College	16,098	71,873
Robert Gordon University	41,853	115,596
Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama	2,885	5,358
Scottish Agricultural College	14,087	14,562
St Andrews University	18,730	32,754
Stirling University	56,583	101,150
Strathclyde University	97,621	305,445
University of Abertay Dundee	56,020	103,040
University of Paisley	66,873	238,649

UHI Millennium Institute	2001-02	2002-03
Highland Theological College	N/A	3,686
Inverness College	63,040	97,679
Lews Castle College	22,888	43,757
Moray College	78,981	110,147
North Atlantic Fisheries College	0	0
North Highland College	5,462	9,387
Orkney College	7,406	12,596
Perth College	71,980	106,144
Sabhal Mor Ostaig	1,497	1,861
Shetland College of Further Education	10,031	9,817
Total	4,340,962	6,700,000

The Independent Committee of Inquiry into Student Finance published its final report Student Finance: Fairness for the Future, the Consultation Process Report and Research Reports Volumes I and II, in December 1999. Copies of these reports are available in the Parliament's Reference Centre (Bib. numbers 4126, 3939 and 3967 respectively).The final report and a summary of the oral evidence submitted to the committee is available on their website at: www.studentfinance.org.uk. The full archive of all the evidence submitted to the committee can be viewed at Saughton House in Edinburgh, by appointment, on telephone number 0131 244 8232.

The Executive will follow section 2 of The Education (Graduate Endowment and Student Support) (Scotland) Act 2001. Income arising from the graduate endowment will be accounted for in the Executive's resource accounts and applied for the purposes of student support.