OFFA Access Agreements, bursaries and 'fair access' to higher education - opening up a new front in the WP wars?

There is a growing body of evidence to support the notion that that English higher education institutions (HEIs) are using the new bursary schemes outlined in Access Agreements (lodged with the regulatory Office for Fair Access, OFFA), designed to widen participation by helping students from poor backgrounds to access higher education, primarily to promote enrolment to their own programmes rather than to promote HE generally. As a consequence of this use of access agreements to sharpen institutions' marketing focus, pre-92 and post-92 institutions perpetuate the differences between HEI types in relation to widening participation and fair access leading to both confusion for consumers and inequitable distribution of support to the detriment of marginal applicants to HE. This is in tune with a general perception that, as the preamble to the 2009 Higher Education Summit in February noted: "The Higher Education sector is becoming increasingly stratified and funding changes increasingly mean that no institution can deliver to all students. All institutions must choose their future and unique University Selling Points".