Over £300 Million in Five Years: The Rise and Fall of University Hardship Funds
Over the last five academic years, UK universities have distributed more than £305 million in hardship funding to their students. They have processed almost half a million applications. And the trajectory tells a clear story: a COVID-era peak, a cost-of-living surge, and then a retreat.
Money Outsider sent Freedom of Information requests to every university in the UK. The 101 that responded with comparable data gave us a detailed picture of how hardship funding has changed since the pandemic.
The five-year arc
In the COVID year of 2020/21, fuelled by emergency government funding, universities paid out £79 million. By 2024/25, that had dropped to £46 million, a fall of 42%.
But it is the 2022/23 cost-of-living crisis year that deserves the most attention. That year saw the highest number of applications in the entire dataset: 116,373. More students asked for help than at any point during the pandemic. Yet total spending (£66.7 million) was 16% below the COVID peak. The money was being spread thinner: more students receiving smaller amounts.
The shrinking grant
The average hardship grant has fallen consistently. In 2020/21 a typical grant was worth £958. By 2023/24 it had dropped to £702, a 27% decline in nominal terms. The 2024/25 figures show a partial recovery in average grant size to £785, but total spending continues to fall because fewer applications are being received. Adjusted for inflation over the same period, the real-terms cut would be significantly larger.
Number of hardship applications is falling
In 2024/25 3.4% of students applied to their university’s hardship fund. The drop in hardship applications from their 2020/21 peak of 5.4% is one of the few pieces of encouraging news in an otherwise bleak landscape for student finances in the UK.
The broader student finance picture
The maintenance loan system, for all its faults, does appear to be doing the basic job of keeping students afloat while they study. The fact that hardship applications have come down from their cost-of-living crisis peak suggests that the worst of the acute funding emergency may have passed, at least for home students who can access the full loan package.
But the real sting comes after graduation. The student loan repayment system has come under intense criticism in recent months, and the numbers are stark. The total outstanding student loan book now stands at £267 billion. In the last tax year, £15.2 billion in interest was added to loans, but only £5 billion was repaid. The average graduate who finished in 2024 left with roughly £53,000 of debt.
The full dataset behind this investigation is available here, including charts and raw data tables.
This dataset is compiled from responses to Freedom of Information requests made to UK Universities. Money Outsider have not independently verified the accuracy or completeness of the disclosed information. Money Outsider have attempted to reprocess data from different formats to allow comparison. No warranty is given as to fitness for purpose. Use of this dataset is at your own risk. Attribution to MoneyOutsider.com is appreciated.
Where applicable, re-use of information is intended to be consistent with the Open Government Licence.