Overview

• All 24 member universities will offer care leavers year-round accommodation, bursaries and contextual admissions to address financial and emotional challenges.
• A new taskforce will standardize terminology and criteria for contextual offers across Russell Group institutions.
• The group’s report highlights that care leavers enter higher education at 14%, compared with 47% of their peers.
• Ministers are set to outline summer reforms raising tuition fees to £9,535 and indexing maintenance loans to inflation.
• The Russell Group has reiterated its call to reinstate maintenance grants for England’s poorest students to further ease cost barriers.