Summary of Access and Participation Plan 2024–25 to 2027–28

Access and participation plans set out how higher education providers will improve equality of opportunity for underrepresented groups to access, succeed in and progress from higher education.

This page is a summary. Please refer to the full plan for more details: Access and Participation Plan 2024-25 to 2027-28 (Download DOCX 111.41 KB).

Key points

Our Plan outlines the ways we are working to improve students’ outcomes here at Leeds. We know that outcomes are lower for some of these groups:

Mature students and students from neighbourhoods with higher levels of deprivation are less likely to come to Leeds.
In addition, these students, along with Black students, are more likely to leave their course before completing it and less likely to obtain a 2:1 or above.

Fees we charge

The maximum fees we charge are £9,250 for full-time students and £6,935 for part-time students.

Subject to the maximum fee limits set by Government, we intend to increase fees each year using the RPI-X as a measure.

Financial support

Our Leeds Bursary offers full and part-time students a choice of a fee discount, cash payment or contribution towards accommodation worth up to £2000 a year.

We have also introduced a £2000 per year premium for students from Care Experienced /Estranged backgrounds, and a £500 per year award to new students at the £36,000–£42,600 household income threshold to help mitigate costs of living. Full information can be found at Leeds Bursary.

Means-tested scholarships are available to groups who are either less likely to go onto higher education or more likely to have lower outcomes. These are worth £3000 per year. Full details, including selection and eligibility criteria, can be found at Scholarships: personal circumstances.

Information for students

We are committed to making our information as accessible as possible.

Information we provide to students:

the fees a prospective student will be charged for the duration of their course (this information will be made available prior to students committing to the course)
government financial support arrangements
details (for prospective, new, and continuing students) of available financial support package (including annual value, eligibility criteria and the arrangements surrounding any means-testing based on students sharing financial data).

Communication methods:

our finance webpages
webpages linked to our course finder pages for prospective applicants
dedicated parent and advisor information via the web and through conferences and sessions at Open Days 
integrated messages within our Widening Participation (WP) and non-WP outreach  
appropriate hard-copy publications
individual financial literacy and budgeting support for students on our sustained outreach programmes.

Our Access and Participation Plan will be available on our student finance webpages, approved and reviewed through committees which have student representation.  

All our information regarding financial support adheres to the Competition and Markets Authority's advice to ensure that we comply with consumer law.

What we are aiming to achieve

We have identified several key risks to equality of opportunity:

Black students are less likely to complete their degree and more likely to have a lower degree award when compared with white students
the same is true of students from areas with higher levels of deprivation compared with students from areas of low/no deprivation and mature students compared with younger peers
the access rates for mature students compared with younger students and for students from areas with higher levels of deprivation compared with students from areas of low/no deprivation.

We aim to:

increase the percentage of mature students attending the University to 7.1% by 2027/28
increase the percentage of students from Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) Quintile 1 attending the University to 16.1% by 2027/28
eliminate the continuation gap between IMD Quintile 5 and IMD Quintile 1 students reducing to 4 percentage points (pp) by 2027/28
eliminate the continuation gap between Black and White students reducing to 3.3 pp by 2027/28
eliminate the continuation gap between mature and young students, reducing to 4.3 pp by 2027/28
eliminate the completion gap between IMD Quintile 5 and IMD Quintile 1 students reducing to 4.4 pp by 2027/28.
eliminate the completion gap between Black and White students, reducing to 3.4 pp by 2027/28
eliminate the degree awarding gap between IMD Quintile 5 and IMD Quintile 1 students to 11.9 pp by 2027/28
eliminate the degree awarding gap between Black and White students, reducing to 11.6 pp by 2027/28
eliminate the degree awarding gap between mature and young students, reducing to 8 pp by 2027/28.

What we are doing to address keys risks to equality of opportunity

Our approach to addressing the key risks includes several activities designed to target specific groups including, but not limited to, mature students, students from minoritised groups and students from high deprivation areas.

Access

We will address the access risks by developing our mature student outreach, our flexible course provision, Information, advice, and guidance strategy (IAG) use of our alternative entry scheme, and our mature student marketing strategy; attainment raising in schools, targeted outreach activity, and associated admissions strategy.

Continuation and completion

Continuation relates to students progressing from year 1 and into year 2 of their studies and completion is when students complete their course. We will address the risks here through the delivery of schemes such as the Plus Programme (which works with under-represented groups) which includes enhanced welcome, induction and transition work implementation and development of learner analytics system supporting direct interventions from staff; identification of more ‘early warning’ systems flagging students at risk of leaving and triggering interventions; financial support (including some positive action scholarships); more emphasis on success related objectives through governance and budgetary structures, student voice and teaching enhancement; more coordinated work directing best practice for promoting mature student success.

Degree awarding

We will address this risk through the implementation of more inclusive ways of teaching including implementation of our Curriculum Redefined programme and assessment strategy, and specifically work on decolonising the curriculum, implementation and development of learner analytics system and supporting direct interventions from staff; undertaking further research into inclusive teaching and learning, addressing the hidden curriculum of embedded expectations with staff and through student engagement prior to registration and on-course, student voice, closer engagement between faculties (particularly academic personal tutors) and the Lifelong Learning Centre. 

How students can get involved

Leeds University Union (LUU) works with the University to ensure students have contributed to the development of our plan. Through LUU students also work in partnership with us to monitor and evaluate its outcomes.

To be involved in this work students can get in touch with us directly using the contact details at the end of this page, or you can get in touch with representatives from LUU.

Additionally, you can contact the Plus Programme team who run the student involvement project which works to ensure students have a meaningful say in the development, delivery, monitoring and evaluation of our fair access and success work.

Evaluation – how we will measure what we have achieved

Our work is informed by the best available evidence we have on what is effective for students. This evidence is gathered through learning from our peers and through evaluation of our own activity. We use data and feedback to understand how effectively our work contributes to the overall aim of improving our students’ access and success.

Our programme evaluations assess:

how effectively our programmes contribute to our aims
whether and how a programme of activity has affected target groups’ access, success, academic attainment, or progression into work/further study
whether the programme can be improved.

A consistent approach to evaluation is embedded across teams directly involved in access and success work with groups that are underrepresented in higher education.

We will also be sharing the outcomes of our evaluation and research through planned webpages and at conferences we attend or deliver across the university sector.

Contact details

For more information, please email Louise Banahene, Director of Educational Engagement at L.Banahene@adm.leeds.ac.uk.