Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information his Department holds on the number of students who (a) applied and (b) qualified for the Disabled Student Allowances in each year since 2011.
Student Loans Company (SLC) Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) application records are shown below. The data is shown by academic year and covers both new and continuing DSAs applications for full- and part-time students domiciled in England studying on undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
Year | Individual applications | Qualified | % of applications which qualified |
2011/12 | 49,978 | 42,952 | 86% |
2012/13 | 50,033 | 44,993 | 90% |
2013/14 | 54,049 | 49,646 | 92% |
2014/15 | 67,651 | 57,615 | 85% |
2015/16 | 69,608 | 58,711 | 84% |
2016/17[1] | 68,942 | 59,821 | 87% |
The SLC internal application tracker data do not align with SLC statistical first release (SFR) data covering take up of DSAs as: not all DSAs students need to apply each year; and not all students who are eligible/qualified for DSAs subsequently draw down support. The SLC SFR data are available at http://www.slc.co.uk/official-statistics/financial-support-awarded/england-higher-education.aspx.
[1] Applications are still being received, so these are not the final figures.