Our Driving Change in Higher Education (HE) project is working with universities across England to review and improve the support they offer to young adult carers. The project offers support, free of charge, for each university to develop and embed support that will make a difference for young adult carers.

Young adult carers are young people, aged 16 to 24, who provide unpaid care to a family member on a regular basis. L&W estimates that young adult carers provide over £3.5 billion of unpaid care per year. Despite this, on average they achieve 9 lower GCSE grades than their peers, they are five times more likely to drop out of college, and they are 38% less likely to achieve a degree qualification. However, these outcomes are not inevitable.

These young people deserve to go as far as their talent and hard work will take them, yet our work and wider research shows that they often don’t feel supported to go to university. Findings from UCAS in 2024 show that almost two thirds (63%) of young adult carers say they did not receive support tailored to their circumstances to apply for HE, and 69% were unaware of the support available for students with caring responsibilities at their university.

We want to break down barriers to HE and ensure that young adult carers have the same opportunities to go to university, and achieve their potential, as other young people.

Supporting young adult carers in higher education

Delivered in partnership with Carers Federation, and supported by The National Lottery Community Fund, The Driving Change in HE project aims to:

• Support successful access and transition to HE for young adult carers
• Improve the support they receive in HE, ensuring that they have a positive experience of university and the same opportunity as their peers to fulfil their potential and achieve better outcomes.

Universities on Driving Change in Higher Education

Starting in April 2024, the project will work with 25 universities over three years. The actions of an initial cohort of Driving Change universities are already having an impact ensuring that the support they offer really meets these young people’s needs. This includes:

• Introducing new processes to improve early and ongoing identification of students with caring responsibilities so that support can be offered as they start university
• Offering specific packages of financial support, such as bursaries
• Production of a young adult carers/carers policy or incorporation of young adult carers into other key policies
• New awareness raising activities which mean that academic and support staff better understand and feel more confident in supporting this group of students.
• Better join-up with local carers services, for example to run specific young adult carer events, is helping young adult carers and their families to identify that the university is carer friendly, encouraging them to consider an HE pathway and helping to support their transition from further education to university.