How going beyond financial support contributes to student success and retention: an institutional case study of the National Scholarship Programme

The National Scholarship Programme (NSP) is a form of financial support that was conceived as a tool to safeguard access to higher education (HE) amidst increasing university tuition fees in England. However, national NSP evaluations now reposition it as an instrument for primarily achieving success and improving retention amongst its recipients. This paper presents a case study of the University of Hertfordshire (UH) and the delivery of its NSP award and has two main purposes: to examine this recalibration of the NSP on an institutional level and to explore whether further transitional support, delivered within the NSP's structure, is effective at smoothing out transitions into UH for students displaying lower than expected academic performance. Student survey and focus group data was collected across the Year 1 NSP cohort at UH during the 2013/14 year and its analysis supports the shift in policy of the NSP towards facilitating student success and retention. It also introduces an innovative mentoring programme that is successful in providing deeper transitional support within the NSP framework. The research should benefit both policymakers seeking to understand the institutional impact of national support models and student support researchers and practitioners interested in carving out new forms of support and understanding their impact on specific student groups.