MORE than one in four universities in Britain and Northern Ireland have foodbanks on campus, research by an education think tank has found.

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) looked across the 140 members of Universities UK, finding that 27 per cent had foodbanks to support students in hardship, a figure that rose to a third among the elite Russell Group of universities.

Foodbanks were more likely to be found on campuses in Wales and the south-west, north-east and south-east of England and least likely to be found in Northern Ireland and London, while 11 per cent of universities issued food vouchers to ensure that students had a meal.

The paper lauded the efforts of institutions such as the University of Manchester, which set up a working group that agreed a £170 payment to more than 90 per cent of its students, and recommended that others follow suit.

The HEPI made clear its belief that government intervention was urgently required.

The institute called on the government to set up a cost-of-living taskforce in partnership with students, universities and devolved administrations, and echoed calls from the National Union of Students (NUS) for maintenance loans and bursaries to be pegged to inflation.

It praised universities for “stepping up as students experience their second major crisis in four years” following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Report author Josh Freeman warned: “It is past time for the Westminster government to address the real-terms decline in maintenance support, which leaves too many students at risk of deprivation — in what are supposed to be the best years of their lives.”

NUS vice-president for higher education (HE) Chloe Field told the Morning Star: “It’s a damning indictment of the government’s abject failure to address the continuing cost-of-living crisis that increasing numbers of students are being forced to rely on foodbanks. 

“Students are the nurses, doctors, teachers and public-sector workers of the future.

“They are the scientists and engineers who will make breakthroughs that transform society and solve our most pressing issues, such as the climate crisis.

“Yet all too many are having their futures blighted by poverty and hardship that risks scuppering their potential. We urgently need a complete overhaul of our failed HE system.

“Maintenance loans must be brought into line with inflation immediately and a rent freeze and rent controls are needed.

“Going forward, we need a return to grants instead of loans and an abolition of tuition fees.”