Overview: Eligible students have 365 days of accommodation costs covered for the first year of study, whether in catered halls or self-catered options. By partnering with third-party providers and embedding strong support mechanisms, the university was able to develop a comprehensive package of support for care experienced and estranged students. Critical to this was ensuring that the bursary was non-competitive and universally available to eligible students. The goal was not just financial relief but a holistic transition into university life – setting students up for success.

Resourcing: The administration for the initiative is built into the role of accommodation officer absorbing approximately 40% of a role. This includes identifying eligible applicants/students and correspondence to the applicant/student along with inter-departmental communications as required.

In-halls support is covered by 1 x manager and 1 x officer. Their remit of course is for all care leavers and estranged students; with particular alertness to those that become estranged during the year and the connection to SFE on gaining estrangement status. The remit includes pre-arrival checks, welcome meetings, social activities and on-going wellbeing support.  They also provide transition support when they move out of halls or graduate. This team have an annual budget of circa £10K to provide home essentials plus social events.

Monitoring/Evaluation:  Applications from care-experienced students have risen since the scheme’s introduction, and enrolment rates have improved significantly. Living on campus has been shown, through regression analysis by UoN’s Digital Research Service, to increase the likelihood of degree completion among bursary recipients.

With a 92% increase in care experienced and estranged students choosing on campus accommodation we are confident in the eventual success outcomes of these students once they reach graduation.  This mirrors findings from the Unite Foundation scholarship programme, reinforcing the transformative power of secure, inclusive accommodation.

Overview: Nottingham Trent University launched and funded a scheme in 2025 to provide 10 tenancies in university-arranged halls to help care leavers. The scheme provides rent-free rooms to qualifying students, representing significant financial relief and importantly, accommodation in locations that ensure accessibility and NTU community integration. Integration is thought to be an important element of developing student self-efficacy and sense of belonging as factors of retention.

Care leavers were offered the opportunity to apply for the scholarship, as part of the targeted support and advice delivered by Student Support Services. The accommodation scholarship supports the transition from care into university and provides access to safe and secure accommodation suitable for all students, including those with additional needs.

Resourcing: Staff from NTU student support services oversaw the process alongside the NTU accommodation team.

Through an existing partnership with UniKitOut, care leavers were provided with discounted vouchers to help them purchase essential bedding and kitchen items to ease the financial burden and a create comfortable living environment.

Monitoring/Evaluation: As the project is in its infancy, quantitative measurement of student success is too early to measure, however, qualitative feedback reports positive feedback from caregivers and local authorities. Students highlighted during the application process that this support would significantly reduce financial stress and allow them to focus more on their studies and university experience.

Initial findings and data, when captured, will be used to inform the strategic approach moving forward and the possible relaunch to 2026/27 applicants.

A similar study from the Unite Foundation JISC independent research on three-year scholarships demonstrated an even level between recipients of a free tenancy with non-care leavers students when examining first to second year progression. 

Overview: In celebration of its signing up to the Care Leaver Covenant, Unite Students gifted 60+ 25/26 tenancies to care experienced and estranged students across 7 city locations including Bristol, Leicester, Leeds, and Liverpool.

Students were identified via the Unite Foundation reserve list. This list of existing and incoming students were eligible applicants to the 25/26 Unite Foundation Scholarship Scheme that had not been selected in the first round simply due to the scheme being annually oversubscribed. The tenancy was without cost across the range of buildings with a minimum room quality of classic ensuite.

Resourcing:  The project saw staff time principally from Unite Students’ Positive Impact manager liaising across business’ city teams to identify available rooms and make the appropriate bookings (removing cost and requirement for a guarantor). Initial contact with students was by Unite Foundation given consent by each was required for personal data to be shared to Unite Students for them to make the tenancy gift. University partners in locations also contributed in confirming student status of those young people arriving to university for the first time.

Monitoring/Evaluation: These students, alongside any Unite Students tenant, will optionally feedback on aspects of their experience throughout the year, from check-in, into the new calendar year, and to the end of the tenancy. Unite Foundation will, as with all applicants to the scholarship, include these students in the long term tracking of the scholarship outcomes.

I remember a time I spoke to a professor at my university about the struggles that estranged and care-experienced students face regarding financial insecurity and homelessness. She was shocked at the extent of the problem, as she assumed that all of us would naturally be awarded automatic scholarships simply for attaining a place at university.
 
At the time, this seemed like an absurd assumption to me because of how far this is from reality.
 
In theory, however, it makes a lot of sense: Only 13% of statutory care leavers will end up in higher education by age 19, compared to 46% of their peers. Family support is generally assumed when entering higher education, and care experience/estrangement often disrupts secondary education in a way that makes it harder to enter university. Furthermore, the Unite Foundation has proven that scholarships which provide free 365-day accommodation
shown to bring continuation, completion and attainment outcomes in line with non-care-experienced students, making it both financially and morally irresponsible for universities to fail to provide this offer.
 
I study Medicine which, at my university, is a six-year degree. This means that I have the three-year fixed-term Unite Foundation Scholarship for exactly half of my degree—the latter half, in my case. Having experienced life as an estranged student through the entirety of my higher education journey, therefore both with and without this scholarship, has shown me how truly life-changing it is to have 365-day guaranteed accommodation at a low cost. It lifts some of the weight of estrangement and gives me the freedom to thrive and truly enjoy my university experience. Furthermore, knowing other estranged and care-experienced students—both with and without accommodation scholarships—has shown me how truly impactful scholarships can be to our student experience.
 
27% of estranged students have considered suspending or leaving due to financial stress[1] and many have faced homelessness. Unfortunately, I have seen the effects of estranged and care-experienced student homelessness several times. When we are homeless, we do not have a home anywhere in the world, which can mean sleeping outside or staying somewhere unstable and unsafe. It is often assumed that homeless students who don’t have a family to rely on can get support elsewhere—from our university, our local authority, or one of the many homelessness charities. However, because the assumption of family support in higher education is so deeply rooted, it puts us in a grey zone where our situations are labelled as “extreme” and “unprecedented” while we are systemically denied support and deferred somewhere equally unpromising. For many of us, this feeling of being passed around while pleas for help are ignored mirrors our childhoods—be it in the care system, or otherwise unsupported by our families.
 
Being estranged or care-experienced inevitably comes with an impending threat of homelessness. This alone is enough to severely disrupt our attainment, our mental health—our lives.
 
Having the Unite Foundation scholarship eliminates this entirely. It even provides us choice over where we live, and thereby gives us safety, security, and a newfound sense of freedom. Being settled in the very place I will be calling home when I finally become a doctor (as long as I continue to pass my exams) is an incredible feeling—a feeling I never would have imagined when living through so many years of uncertainty and instability.
 
Although I am extremely grateful for this, I am also aware of the scarcity of this scholarship, supporting almost 900 students in total over the last 13 years – a drop in the ocean for the number of estranged and care-experienced students going to university. Gratitude inevitably comes with guilt. I have seen friends refuse to apply for fear of taking an opportunity from someone more deserving, despite clearly needing support themselves.
 
In my view, estranged and care-experienced students are all deserving of support. Now that we have clear evidence of their benefit, these scholarships should not be selective; they should be standard.

Every year, hundreds of thousands of students transition from school to university. For many, this means moving away from home temporarily to pursue education. Naturally, moving away from home for university comes with a wide variety of costs on top of the fees payable for attending university. With the current cost of living, many students are increasingly feeling the crunch of financial pressures.

The National Student Money Survey 2025 shows that:
+ On average, the maintenance loan needs to be £502 per month higher to cover living costs.
+ 61% of students skip meals to save money.
+ 41% have thought about dropping out due to money-related issues.

For care-experienced and estranged students, the stakes are completely different. University isn’t a temporary relocation but rather their new home.

When I became estranged, the greatest difficulty for me was the cost of accommodation.

Without family or parents to support them, many care-experienced and estranged students can find their transition to university less of a fresh start and more of a balancing act. Without support, care-experienced and estranged students face large barriers to engaging with their studies, greater financial pressure and worse mental health compared to their peers. Accommodation scholarships can create equity through taking off one of the highest costs that care-experienced and estranged students face, allowing them to more readily engage with their studies.

We know that this can have a big impact on students’ ability to stay, succeed, and thrive at university. A HEPI Blog that looked at the Student Academic Experience Survey data found that:
+ 43% of care-experienced students, and 44% of estranged students have considered withdrawing from university, compared to 28% of their peers.
+ Care-experienced students work, on average, 11.3 hours/week, and estranged students work 11.1 hours/week, compared to 8.8 hours/week for other students.
+ Care-experienced and estranged applicants are twice as likely to have prolonged absences due to mental health issues.

Financial pressure takes away from the ability to engage with studies, not only through part-time work commitments but also from the mental health stress that comes from having to balance multiple commitments and not always knowing where you’re going to be living.

Accommodation Scholarships have helped with this, showing that:

+ Care-experienced and estranged students progress each year of their degree at the same rate as their peers.
+ More care-experienced and estranged students finish their degrees.
+ More care-experienced and estranged students achieve a high degree classification.

Those without accommodation scholarships progressed more slowly, graduated less and didn’t achieve as many high degree classifications.

This shows that accommodation scholarships are effective at closing gaps between care-experienced and estranged students and their peers while also improving academic outcomes for unsupported care-experienced and estranged students.

But it’s more than just a scholarship.

Support must not only provide the means to afford housing but must also create a home for care-experienced and estranged students. That means students should be provided with 365-day accommodation so that they don’t face homelessness during breaks.

Rooms should also come equipped with home essentials such as bedding and kitchen essentials, so that these students can arrive with dignity and reduced financial pressure – having a way to cook your dinner on in your first night in student accommodation shouldn’t be a luxury.

Care-experienced and estranged students often face more mental health challenges and can be more isolated than other students . Universities should embed wellbeing support within their accommodations and utilise a more proactive approach to be able to intervene when a student is struggling. Having someone you can turn to in the safety of your home is so important.

I believe this support can help to start to make a home at university for care-experienced and estranged students and create equity for them.

To support other students, like me, universities should prioritise financial support for care-experienced and estranged students to help provide initial stability for these students to lean on while they seek further support and build their lives at university.