Old universities: Big prizes for the poorest

It would have been such a good opportunity to attract a bit of free publicity. Obliged to share some of their new-found fee-income among poorer students, the pre-1992 universities could have dreamt up some headline-grabbing wheezes to dole out the money and bolstered their all-important brand-awareness at the same time.

Sheffield University might have thrown in a canteen of stainless-steel cutlery, for example, as part of a start-up pack for needy first-years, and Liverpool could have included boxed sets of Beatles CDs. A few universities in the flatter Eastern counties might have splashed out on shiny bicycles for new arrivals, and the marketing department at Newcastle would surely have attracted stacks of column inches if it had financed plentiful supplies of short skirts and skimpy tops for all those girly nights that freshers will enjoy during winter, touring the Tyneside clubs.

But no. When you see the range and character of bursaries and financial inducements on offer from the Russell Group, and their younger cousins from the 1994 Group, it's clear that the number-crunchers took the lead in deciding how the cake was to be carved up, and the PR consultants took the day off.

That doesn't, however, mean that every university is offering exactly the same. There are some significant differences between institutions, and a few examples of moderately inventive schemes. However, it would seem rash for a potential student to let any of these financial considerations outweigh the usual factors affecting the choice of course and campus.

What is clear is that there are large pots of money to be distributed. The University of Liverpool, for example, expects to raise around £18m extra next year when it puts up its tuition fees to £3,000, and one-third of this will be spread around new students considered worthy of help.

The first qualifying group are those eligible for a full maintenance grant, namely those coming from families with an income of £17,500 or less. They'll receive an annual bursary of £1,300. Those on a partial maintenance grant, which means a family income between £17,501 and £35,425, get a £1,000 bursary.

In addition, "attainment scholarships" of £1,500 are available for those arriving with good A-levels (two As and a B) in Liverpool's strong research subjects, including engineering, physics, chemistry, computer science, and earth and ocean sciences. These will continue for the life of the degree course if students pass year-end exams with at least 70 per cent.

Finally, some of Liverpool's extra money will be spent on strengthening the university's existing outreach work, which entails, among other things, giving practical support to school and college pupils from areas and backgrounds where higher education participation is low.

Most institutions have come up with a mixture of allocations along similar lines - distributing aid both to alleviate relative poverty and to reward high academic achievement. Most, too, have mixed in a third ingredient, linked to ethnic or social background.

The starting point everywhere, though, is the level of maintenance grant each student attracts.

The highest bursaries for those on full grants, not surprisingly, are on offer at Oxbridge. Cambridge is giving £5,000 to a mature student on a full grant and £3,000 to a younger individual. Oxford offers £4,000 to students, regardless of age, coming from the most straitened households, and a sliding scale down to £100 for those receiving the smallest maintenance grant.

At the other end of the spectrum, a number of the relatively younger universities have opted to award little more than the bare minimum, £300, to full grant recipients. One example of these relatively parsimonious bodies is the University of East Anglia, where £540 is the highest grant-related award.

In between the extremes are numerous figures, most of which, however, hover around the £1,000 mark. Examples include the £1,300 available from the red brick trio of Leeds, Newcastle and Liverpool, £1,000 from Nottingham, Sussex, Manchester and Lancaster, £800 at Birmingham, and £650 at Sheffield.

All these amounts go to students getting the full grant, but many universities then apply a sliding scale of lower bursaries to students from slightly better off, but by no means wealthy, homes.

Two London institutions, UCL and King's College, achieve largely the same end by offering 50p in bursary for every £1 received in maintenance grant.

However, this means-tested element is by no means the whole story, and in most places there's more money to be had if you're bright, you're local or you come from an ethnic or social group thus far under-represented in lecture theatres. If you can tick all three boxes, all the better.

A good example is Manchester. If your family income is less than £26,500 and you get three As at A-level, your bursary soars to £5,000. Three As from better-off backgrounds attract £1,000. But the really eye-catching carrot at Manchester consists of £10,000-a-year bursaries, available to the 10 most academically outstanding UK students: quite an incentive for the brightest to put Manchester top of the Ucas form.

Incentives for academic achievement are widespread, and often linked to the less popular subjects. Some universities name subjects explicitly - Keele is offering £1,000 to maths undergraduates, for example - while others, including Bristol and Sussex, suggest that qualifying subjects may change from year to year, according to demand for the courses.

A number of universities are also offering to top up some students' bank balances if they bring with them outstanding talents in the fields of music and sport. Glasgow, Manchester and Loughborough are among these institutions.

Like Liverpool, most universities also offer an extra top-up to local students from less well-off backgrounds, and promise to use some of their extra income to strengthen existing widening participation programmes, usually run in conjunction with the Government-funded Aimhigher schemes. These vary from place to place, but usually target families, communities or ethnic groups where a university education is rare.

In summary, the informal club of top drawer and first division universities seems to have arrived at a uniformity of approach, even if the nuts and bolts of exact funding formulas vary significantly.

All the institutions go further than the minimum statutory requirements, and all go to some lengths to meet what might be termed their social obligations to reach outside their traditional constituencies. But, equally, their funding is aimed at attracting intellect and talent, to ensure they maintain their status in the hierarchy.