Northumbria University, Newcastle, has
partnered with The Unite Foundation to offer life-enhancing accommodation
scholarships to students from less-represented backgrounds.
The Unite Foundation’s new ‘Home at
University: Widening Access & Participation Pilot’ offers accommodation
scholarship for students who are care leavers or estranged from their families. It is a match-funded scheme between Northumbria
University, the Unite Foundation, Astra Foundation, and the Dulverton Trust.
Northumbria is one of four universities to be selected for the pilot scheme.
Scholarships will be open to students
who are care leavers or estranged from their family, and who are applying for
their first year undergraduate study to start in the academic year 2023/24. They
will cover accommodation and bills for 365 days a year for up to three years of
study.
Unite Foundation Director Fiona
Ellison said: ‘We’re delighted to be welcoming four new partner universities
into The Unite Foundation family. The ‘Home at University: Widening Access
& Participation Pilot’ will enable us to offer up to 17 new scholarships
across four additional higher education providers. This means 17 care leavers
or estranged students will have more choice when applying for a Unite
Foundation scholarship and be able to take advantage of everything university has
to offer.
“We’re excited to work with Northumbria on
this new scholarship. This pilot will enable us to reach students wishing to
study in the North East, as the Unite Foundation currently don’t have any
partners in the region. This coupled with strong institutional engagement from
the 2022 THE University of the Year and Northumbria’s role supporting North
East Raising Aspirations Partnership, will ensure that learning and insight
from this work is shared with university partners across the North East.’
Graham
Wynn, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education) from Northumbria added: “Our
ambition at Northumbria is to provide more opportunities for all our students
and graduates to succeed in their studies, career and life ambitions, and we
are absolutely delighted to be partnering with the Unite Foundation on this
scholarship initiative. We very much look forward to welcoming our scholarship
students into our Northumbria learning community.”
The pilot scheme will open for applications on The Unite Foundation website from January 1st 2023 and is open
to all care leaver or estranged students applying to first year undergraduate
courses starting in the academic year 23/24.
The Unite Foundation is an independent
registered charity offering unique accommodation scholarships for care leavers
and estranged young people at universities across the UK.
In January 2022 Northumbria launched its Higher
Education Without Barriers campaign to
enable talented students from all backgrounds to access higher education. Supported by
businesses, charitable trusts, and alumni, the campaign has raised over £2m and benefited more than 800
students in outreach, scholarships, hardship, well-being, and enterprise.
