News13 August 2026
TASO will soon be inviting applications from higher education providers for the retrospective evaluation of existing financial support schemes, designed to support students’ success on-course by alleviating the financial costs of study.
Financial support is a crucial lever in higher education policy, shaping providers’ strategic planning and day-to-day operations. This form of financial support influences the academic outcomes and experiences of students, particularly those from disadvantaged and underrepresented backgrounds. However, while various financial aid models are currently used, further evidence is needed to determine how specific financial support structures, delivery mechanisms and level of support are related to student success.
To support this policy area, we are launching a new project to evaluate financial support schemes and are inviting higher education providers to collaborate with us. Selected providers will receive up to £10,000 to support delivery of the project.
Types of evaluation
We will appoint up to three providers to work with an independent evaluator to test the impact of their financial support schemes. We will use methods that can establish a causal relationship between an intervention and outcomes using retrospective quasi-experimental designs (QEDs). QEDs rely on naturally occurring or constructed treatment and comparator groups rather than by random assignment.
Types of intervention
We will choose the interventions and evaluation methodology through an open commissioning process. We will select partner providers based on factors including feasibility of using QEDs for evaluation including the availability of historic data for evaluation.
We aim to evaluate needs-based financial support. Within English higher education, this primarily encompasses bursary schemes, but also may extend to other means-tested assistance such as tuition discounts and targeted grants.
Given the retrospective nature of these trials we expect the outcome data to include attainment, continuation, progression, and engagement with studies or support services.
Application process
The invitations to tender will open in September 2026 for approximately six weeks.
The online application process will be relatively light touch – we will gather details about your financial support schemes to determine the feasibility of evaluating them using causal quantitative methods.
Who should apply?
- We will select and work with providers (or groups of providers) who are interested in evaluating their financial support schemes.
- The lead applicant must be a registered English higher education provider in the approved (fee cap) category.
- We will commission an independent evaluator to support the participating providers during the project.
Application timeline
- We expect to launch invitations to tender during the week commencing 31 August 2026.
- We plan to hold a webinar the week commencing 14 September 2026 to provide more information for potential applicants.
- The deadline for submitting your tender is 12 October 2026 at 13:00.
- The final decision will be made by 2 November 2026.
When will the project take place?
- The project is likely to start with a scoping phase in January 2027, and complete by the end of June 2027.
Will we be issuing any other invitations to tender during the 2026/27 academic year?
A core focus of our 2026/27 commissioned work is understanding post-entry financial support. In the autumn we will be launching another open call for providers to partner with us on scoping the feasibility of running prospective trials of bursary schemes, and their impact on student outcomes.
For further details on our priorities for the year ahead, read our blog post ‘Six years on: What we’ve learned and where we’re going’.