Nadeine Asbali points out that many young people from poorer backgrounds had much less chance of achieving high grades at A-level this year than their better-off peers did (These A-level students pulled off something remarkable. But close up the results tell a troubling story, 15 August). A further inequality is that families receiving universal credit (UC) lose the child element if a young person goes to university. However, if that person goes on to “non-advanced” education, the family still receives UC for them.
Universities can award bursaries, but they are very small. And students going on to higher education can apply for a loan, but this has to be repaid. Meanwhile, the loan does not cover all the costs of living away from home for three years, so families have to find a way to provide support, or students have to take on paid work.
My daughter’s UC will be reduced by £300 a month when her daughter goes to university in September, and yet she will have to find more than that to support her while she is studying. How is this fair?
Ann Healey
Worthing, West Sussex
• “Being 18 isn’t easy at the best of times,” writes Nadeine Asbali. She’s right – and the current interface between school and university makes it harder. Last week, thousands of young people found that their A-level grades weren’t quite as good as they hoped, and therefore they can’t take up places at university that they had hoped and planned for. They have then gone into a mad scramble to find, within 24 hours, a place for their next three or four years of life.
All this could be avoided if we had a post-qualification admission system, where students get their results first and then apply to university. This would require compromises by schools and universities regarding terms and holidays. But surely that is not too much to ask for the benefit of the young people they serve.
Dr Brian Ramsden
Former chief executive, Higher Education Statistics Agency
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