University Student Support

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 4 February 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:31, 4 February 2020

I thank Carwyn Jones for that supplementary question. He's absolutely right, Llywydd, to draw the link between the investment we make in the higher education sector and the future success of the Welsh economy. The figures that he points to are remarkable. They show a 7 per cent increase in part-time students as a result of the policies followed by this Government. They show a 9 per cent increase in postgraduate students. And they really are an investment, as Carwyn Jones has said, in the sort of skills that we will need in the Welsh economy in the future. And it comes from that key insight of the Diamond review that it was living costs in the here and now, not tuition fees, that were the greatest barrier to people coming into higher education, both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. 

And I know that the Member will be particularly pleased, because of the close interest he's always shown in this, with the decision to abolish means testing altogether for care leavers up to the age of 25, and the fact that we are consulting currently on potential changes to support for disabled students, to make sure that they too have as full and unfettered access to our higher education system as we can design for them.