Estranged students in Further (FE) and Higher Education (HE) - experiences: literature review

5. Prevalence of estranged students

Identifying estranged students has, up to now, been somewhat difficult as funding bodies and institutions have had to rely on students self-declaring upon entry. The estranged students interviewed as part of Costa's research in Scotland (2019) experienced stigma around their status and sometimes felt unable to identify with the 'narrow, and, contested' eligibility criteria. In other cases, they may not become estranged until they have already started their course, or may not identify as an estranged student due to low awareness of the term.

In a survey conducted by Ipsos Mori for Stand Alone (2014), 19% of respondents said they had been affected by family estrangement, with 8% of those from across the UK having cut ties with their family (12% in Scotland). This is considerably more than is suggested by data from funding bodies. Provisional data from the Student Loans Company (SLC) for 2021-22 found there were 8,435 estranged students enrolled at English HE providers that year, 292 in Wales and 104 in Northern Ireland (2022d). These publicly available data are published by the UK Government and are based on the number of individuals applying for student finance who indicated on their applications that they were estranged from their parents or are a care leaver.

Currently, no corresponding dataset exists for Scotland, although the Scottish Government is considering the data and statistics currently available on FE and HE students in Scotland (Scottish Government, 2020b). While no data were available pertaining to the number of estranged students in FE, Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) data published by Stand Alone (2020) estimates that there were 525 estranged students supported by SAAS on full-time HE courses at Scottish colleges and universities in 2019-20. Given the emotional and practical difficulties of evidencing family estrangement (Taylor and Costa, 2019b), it is likely numbers are higher. The SAAS data show higher proportions of female students self-declared as estranged than male (315 compared with 230). They also show higher proportions of self-declared estranged students came from the 40% most deprived postcode areas (approximately three-quarters came from these areas).

Widening access and funding policy in Scotland has until recently tended to focus on neighbourhood deprivation, family income, and care experienced students. Indeed, it was only in 2016 that the concept of estrangement among Scottish students was first recognised (Taylor and Costa, 2019a). Estranged students are mentioned rarely in reports from Scotland's Commissioner for Fair Access, although a 2020 report notes that family estrangement can be seen as an additional driver of inequality, and is one of the characteristics which can 'compound the core disadvantage produced by socio-economic deprivation.'

Amid signs of an increased recognition of estrangement and its associated challenges, UCAS introduced a tick box in 2022, which allows students to declare themselves as estranged from their parental figures at the point of application. This aims to make student estrangement more visible to institutions and facilitate access to support (Mueller, 2022). SAAS has had a similar tick box since 2018, which estranged students can select to highlight their eligibility for alternative, and potentially higher levels of funding (Scottish Government, 2020b). Unlike the UCAS declaration, however, this does not link to a students' institution; instead relying on the student to self-declare a second time to their college or university.