– Scottish Parliament written question – answered on 21 March 2011.
Sarah Boyack
Labour
Question S3W-40564
To ask the Scottish Executive what the average bursary award has been for (a) part-time and (b) full-time students at colleges and universities in Edinburgh and the Lothians region in each of the last five years, broken down by institution.
Michael Russell
Scottish National Party
Bursary payments to Scottish students are paid out by Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) for full-time higher education (HE) students, and the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) allocates further funds for further education (FE) students. The most recent year where data collection for bursary payments is complete is 2009-10, so this answer contains data for academic sessions 2005-06 to 2009-10.
In these academic sessions, full-time Scottish students studying at HE level in Scotland are eligible to apply for Young Students’ Bursary (YSB). The bursary is income assessed, and is paid out to students who were under 25 before the first day of the first academic year of your course and have not been supporting themselves through earnings for at least three years. YSB is paid out instead of part of the maintenance loan, so it reduces the amount of loan that these students will be entitled to. Table 1 therefore shows the average YSB payments to full-time students for each institution in Edinburgh and Lothians, for 2005-06 to 2009-10.
Table 1: Average Bursary Payments to Full-Time Higher Education Students Studying at Institutions in Edinburgh and Lothians, 2005-06 to 2009-10 (£)
| Edinburgh Institutions | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | 2008-09 | 2009-10 |
| Queen Margaret University | 1,910 | 1,916 | 1,954 | 1,985 | 2,136 |
| Edinburgh’s Telford College | 1,863 | 1,970 | 1,935 | 2,014 | 2,079 |
| Edinburgh College of Art | 1,913 | 1,894 | 1,963 | 1,910 | 2,040 |
| Stevenson College | 1,957 | 1,908 | 1,986 | 2,109 | 2,105 |
| Edinburgh University | 1,775 | 1,814 | 1,854 | 1,885 | 1,923 |
| Napier University | 1,880 | 1,939 | 1,983 | 2,008 | 2,088 |
| Heriot-Watt University | 1,790 | 1,865 | 1,930 | 1,965 | 2,049 |
| Lothians institutions | |||||
| Oatridge Agricultural College | 1,842 | 1,821 | 1,856 | 1,773 | 1,912 |
| West Lothian College | 1,901 | 2,068 | 2,074 | 1,914 | 2,036 |
| Jewel and Esk Valley College | 2,008 | 2,001 | 2,075 | 2,021 | 2,077 |
Source: SAAS Management Information.
The Scottish Funding Council allocate money to college institutions in respect of students who are studying at further education level. These funds can be accessed by full-time students or part-time students on the basis of study, travel, or special educational needs. However, because institutions distribute the money as they see fit, the total number of students that benefited from these allocations of money was not available so it was not possible to calculate an average payment. Therefore, table 2 shows the total amounts allocated to each college in the Edinburgh and Lothians regions.
Table 2: Total Bursary Amounts Allocated by Scottish Funding Council to Colleges in Edinburgh and Lothians, 2005-06 to 2009-10
| Edinburgh Colleges | 2005-06 | 2006-07 | 2007-08 | 2008-09 | 2009-10 |
| Edinburgh’s Telford College | £2,441,659 | £2,746,050 | £2,687,411 | £2,961,324 | £3,552,944 |
| Stevenson College | £1,864,943 | £2,097,509 | £2,164,474 | £2,638,576 | £2,911,232 |
| Lothians Colleges | |||||
| Jewel and Esk College | £1,043,917 | £1,389,652 | £1,165,197 | £1,450,441 | £1,773,488 |
| West Lothian College | £977,562 | £1,079,000 | £1,139,508 | £1,231,406 | £1,302,431 |
| Oatridge College | £356,698 | £414,281 | £413,188 | £512,470 | £572,242 |
Source: Scottish Funding Council.
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