SCOTTISH college students are facing a £2.4 million shortfall in vital support funds, new figures show.
Colleges requested an additional £4.25m to help pay for bursaries and childcare allowances, but only received £1.8m.
Student support funds in the college sector are crucial because they are the only financial help available to further education students.
Unlike their counterparts in higher education, college students have no guarantees because the funding is discretionary and limited to how much institutions have been given.
NUS Scotland has already campaigned for increased funding for student support in the short-term, with the longer term aim of fundamental reform to provide a guaranteed level of support.
Vonnie Sandlan, NUS Scotland president, said: “Once again there’s a huge shortfall in vital financial support for college students.
"This could see colleges forced to take money from elsewhere, close their doors to new students, or individual students getting reduced support or even none at all.
"Colleges support some of our most disadvantaged communities, so a shortage in these funds could be a disaster for those who rely on student support the most. "It’s obvious that funds are not keeping up with demand - something we see repeated every year. It's clear the system needs a complete overhaul."
Iain Gray, Scottish Labour's opportunity spokesman, said: "People's ability to learn should not be based on how much money they have, but these figures show college students are being more than short-changed by the SNP - they are being ripped off.
"NUS Scotland recently told the Scottish Parliament student support in colleges was not fit for purpose and these figures provide evidence that is the case."
However, the Scottish Government said the
Shona Struthers, chief executive of Colleges Scotland said: : "Student support funding is vital to helping many students, particularly from poorer backgrounds, to access high quality college education courses.
"Colleges seek to maximise the finance available to students. Last year, the shortfall in student support funding was met by the Scottish Government allowing colleges to use depreciation funding and Colleges Scotland is discussing a similar approach for 2015/16”.
A spokesman for the Scottish Funding Council, which oversees payments, said the the redistribution exercise was carried out to ensure student support funds were directed where there was most need.
He added: "We identify unspent student support funds from within the system, including any unused funds from the previous year, and re-allocate this to colleges with higher demand."
A Scottish Government spokesman said: “We’ve invested a record level of over £105m in further education student support this year – an increase of 29% in real terms since 2006/07 and we have worked closely with the Scottish Funding Council over the last year, initially by ensuring that allocations of funding match more closely to need, this means that this year’s shortfall is a more accurate reflection of need across the sector.
“The shortfall will once again be met in full through the re-direction of funds previously earmarked for depreciation, ensuring that colleges can continue to meet commitments to students.
"Working with the SFC, we’re striving to continually improve the further education support system and will, from 2016/17, meet one of NUS Scotland’s key asks’ by abolishing the ‘variance rule’, ensuring that students receive 100% of their award granted.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel