Students struggling with their finances are to benefit from record levels of student support funding as part of the Scottish Further and HigheEducation Funding Council’s (SFC) £690 million funding settlement for Scotland’s 43 colleges.

The £83.9 million for student support includes a £5 million increase for student bursaries, which follows an above inflation increase of £4 millionl ast year and brings the total increase over three years to £11.7 million. This will allow colleges to respond to the increased demand for student support during the economic downturn and will be targeted to colleges with the greatest need.

For more information the full details are on the SFC website

Scotland’s 20 universities are to receive £1.12 billion of funding for teaching, research, and maintaining their estates for the 2010-11 academic year. Funding has also been provided to support innovation in strategic areas such as skills, employability and wider access to university education.

The investment, which comes from the Scottish Further and Higher Education Funding Council (SFC), represents an overall increase of £15.3 million or 1.4 per cent on 2009-10 funding.

Find out more

The Scottish Funding Council have launched the Learning for All:fourth update on measure of success March 2010. 

 Find out more about Learning for All 2010

The Council has decided to review the WARP in 2010 as part of wider review of its access and inclusion programme funding in colleges and universities, and also in the context of the introduction of New Horizon funding.

Find out more about this review by reading the SFC full circular sent on the 22nd January 2010. 

The Scottish Participation in Further and Higher Education report   has been released by the Scottish Funding Council.   

The SFC plan covers the period 2009-2010. It is a high level document, setting the outcomes that it wishes to deliver upon. It highlights the need for the plan to be flexible to allow for response to the challenges and opportunities that arise as a result of the economic climate.

The four Forums work closely with this committee, to see the most recent papers, meeting dates and minutes please go to the SFC website.