From now on, the Imperial Bursary will be fully extended to cover Medicine students in all years of their course. Find out below how this has come about.
I am delighted to be able to announce that, following months of work myself, building on years of work from my predecessors, the College have agreed to fully extend the Imperial Bursary to students in their 5th and 6th year of an MBBS course. This means that, if you're a current MBBS student, you'll receive your full entitlement of the bursary for all 6 years of your course - not just the first 4, as it currently stands. This has been a long time coming and I am delighted that the Union has been able to successfully advocate for this tangible change on behalf of our medic students.
To give some context about where this has come from, I've written this blog post explaining the background, what's happened and what the result is. I also hope that this blog might give some nice insight into how the Officers at the Union go about making change in the College - because we probably don't talk about this nitty gritty enough!
Background
The Imperial Bursary provides financial support for Home UG students with household incomes of up to £60,000. It is one of and (especially after this MBBS change) probably the most generous bursary provisions in the country with a max award of £5,000 per academic year for a UG course. However, since it was introduced it has only covered a maximum of 4 years of an UG course which means that MBBS students, who study for 6 years, have not received support for 2 years of their course. There are a number of reasons why this was chosen to be the case: e.g. it was originally felt that it wouldn't be fair to offer more than 4 years for only some students; there used to be more financial support available for these students; medics used to be counted different for the College's widening participation targets.
Regardless of the historic reasons for this, 5th and 6th year medics in recent years have felt the financial strain. It's one of those 'known things' for medics that 5th year hits hard financially, and 5th and 6th years are account for a heavily disproportional amount of the Faculty of Medicine's hardship fund payouts. Following work from my predecessor's predecessor's predecessor's predecessor (yes, the DPW in 2015/16), an option was given to spread the 4 years of the bursary over 6 years which went some way to alleviate the sudden financial shock, but did not go far enough.
Union Response to the Bursary Survey
Every year, the College conducts a survey of the recipients of the bursary to find out how they've used it, what it's been helpful for, how well it is administered/communicated, and how important it was in deciding to come to Imperial. Generally, the Union writes a response to the data gathered from this, which is something I did for the survey conducted in early 2020.
In general, the survey showed that the bursary is extremely helpful for covering living costs and helping students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds participate in uni life. Also, many said that it was a big factor in choosing to come to Imperial. However, there were a few areas that needed improvement and I advocated for some recommendations around the communication of the bursary, additional (non-financial) support for certain students, and examining the extent to which families are able to support in the way Student Finance expects. They key recommendation was, however, to extend the Imperial bursary for all MBBS years following different figures and comments that showed that medics were feeling the benefit to a lesser extent.
I took this response to the College's Access and Participation Compliance Group (APCG, which approves the setting of the bursary) in October and advocated for the changes outlined. There was some discussion about the paper and the principles, and a staff member in the College's Strategic Planning team was tasked with exploring the MBBS issue further.
What happened next?
After this meeting, I met with the Medic's Union President and Welfare Chair (Munty and Natania), as well as welfare staff members in the Faculty of Medicine to talk about the issue further. As well help back up the claims that MBBS final years struggled financially, this helped put to bed alternative explanations for the issue such as 'medics don't know about the 6-year payment plan'. The College staff member who had been tasked with exploring this created a briefing report about the bursary and some potential options for funding MBBS students - which included only partially funding, or redistributing away from other areas of the bursary, as well as just fully extending. This was talked about at the next APCG meeting in April and I made the case even further to fully extend.
There was general agreement in the room, however also some reticence due to the cost implications. Furthermore, they could only make a recommendation to the College's Provost's Board that was meeting the next week. I asked to attend this Provost's Board meeting and, with the input of Munty, put together this briefing to make the case (it refers to another report which I am unable to share). There was strong agreement for there being parity of the bursary across all students and agreement, subject to financial approval, to make this the case.
I came out of this a bit apprehensive since it seemed like a very soft yes, and one that could be taken away easily. I've chased a number of times in the subsequent months and, just this week, it has finally been fully approved by the College.
This isn't perfect, however. The bursary provision is intended for a 39-week academic year while medics in their final two years have an average of a 52-week academic year. This leaves many students still below the cost of living mark when considering the longer academic year. I requested the College to prorate the bursary for a 52-week year but they opted to not do this and instead continually review financial support available. They also mentioned wanting parity across the scheme and that there will still be other financial support avenues (such as the ICSM hardship fund) available. While this is disappointing, the extension still marks a very significant step.
What does it mean
Essentially, all bursary recipients in medicine will now receive the same yearly treatment as all other UG students in the College. The 50% increase in total-course bursary funding they'll get is commensurate with the 50% longer they stay (compared to a 4-year course). Instead of an 'extension' or 'increase', though, I'd like to frame this as the College stopping removing funding. As my briefing paper above outlines, the drop in Imperial bursary is the biggest driver in decrease of funding for MBBS recipients and I'm glad that the College have now accepted this as a proposition.
This is all very fresh news and the team who administer it in the College are still working out the finer details, so perhaps give it a week before you get in touch with any details! But any 5th year medic who already started their new year, and anyone entering their final year will receive their full bursary entitlement.
Success here shows the positive impact a partnership relationship with the College can have - and I am grateful to the staff members who were behind-the-scenes supportive of making this happen! I hope this also shows that, while ICU isn't always as in touch with the medics as we should be, we are here for you too, and your problems are not forgotten about! Please continue to get in touch with ICU Officers if there are things you think we should be advocating for on your behalf.