Institutional grants or bursaries

Institutional grants, or bursaries, now are a central feature of the student financial aid systems in the United States and England. In some instances they are a student’s sole source of financial aid, for others they supplement aid available from other sources. Unlike aid available from government sources, these grants are under the control of individual institutions of higher education and thus are often used for purposes other than promoting access for low and moderate income students, as many government funded financial aid programs do. This study uses data from surveys of students in the two countries, as well as records of universities themselves, to analyze the types of grants being offered to students, the criteria being used in awarding them (for example, financial need versus academic merit), and the distributional impact of this form of financing