Daniel Lavelle speaks with three care leavers about their experiences of entering higher education.
From an article in The Guardian:
From reduced tuition fees to bursaries, access to counselling and year-round accommodation, universities have become much better at supporting care leavers over the past 10 years. I was fortunate enough to be entitled to support – but, like many care leavers, was unaware of it. As a result, I racked up huge rental arrears that left me homeless before my finals. Sam Turner, of the care leavers’ charity Become, says the fact that there is financial help available is “not information that necessarily reaches the people who really need to hear it the most”.
He adds: “If they had all the awareness of the different bursaries that universities can offer and the different kinds of funding that local authorities can give them, it’s actually a really realistic proposition for a lot of people.”