Student financial support: do you know what is available? The fund is there essentially to help individuals stay the course, and offers two forms of help: "standard" assessments when income simply doesn't match expenditure; and "non-standard" for one-off emergences that arise that a student just can't cover, such as family funeral expenses or broken boilers. Having had to access hardship funds myself in my final year just so I could temporarily give up one of my part-time jobs, I know just how important it is to have support available at the time it's needed most. Our research shows one-in-10 undergraduate students have applied for discretionary financial support, but this increases to one-in-seven postgraduates. Meanwhile, a fifth of healthcare students and the same proportion of disabled students and black and minority ethnic students have applied. And more than a quarter of student parents have sought this emergency funding. Perhaps this is unsurprising when you consider that part-time students receive less in maintenance and absolutely nothing for childcare. This essential access fund has, however, been cut nearly in half over the past eight years. And the remaining money is spread thinly across 100 different higher education providers, stretching limited resources to breaking point. Individual coffers often empty well before the end of the academic year. The testimonies we collected from students show just how important this fund is, from student parents being able to go the distance and get top grades to those whose parents have been made redundant and whose family's finances have felt the pinch. At the same time, more support is clearly needed for those who are most likely to struggle. Money needs to go into this dedicated support fund if those least likely to succeed are to actually last the course - to avoid working so many hours that it detrimentally affects their wellbeing and performance, or worse still, they drop out altogether. Such support is essential if the Prime Minister and Chancellor's ambitions to build an "aspiration nation" are to genuinely be realised. Without changes to student financial support, the evidence we have gathered shows many of the most vulnerable students are increasingly turning to unscrupulous loan merchants charging sky-high interest rates and consigning themselves in turn to many years of financial struggle.