Student Finance and Wellbeing Study Scotland 2023/24: literature review

2. Methodology

Scottish domiciled students who are residentially eligible for fees and/or student support and are enrolled in a Scottish college or university were the focus of the project.

These included:

• FE students in publicly funded colleges (full-time or part-time);
• Full-time and part-time HE students enrolled on Higher National Certificates (HNC), Higher National Diplomas (HND) and undergraduate degrees in publicly funded colleges and universities;
• Postgraduate students in publicly funded universities (full-time or part-time);
• Students from all years of study.

The following student groups were excluded from the literature search:

• Non-Scottish domiciled students;
• Scottish domiciled students attending colleges and universities in the rest of the UK;
• Students domiciled in Scotland who are not eligible for fees and/or student support in Scotland, for example students whose families are living in Scotland on certain work visas;
• Scottish students at private colleges and training providers;
• International students.

The majority of literature on student finances and students’ experiences of funding and financial wellbeing is based on UK-wide or England and Wales-only data. This review focused on the experiences of Scottish-domiciled students studying in Scotland rather than in the rest of the UK to remain in line with the scope of the study.

The review included UK publications in academic journals, grey literature and research undertaken by specialist organisations. The literature search was conducted between February 2023 and February 2024. All English language documents were included, and studies undertaken out with the UK were excluded. The focus was on literature published since 2014; however, some relevant Scottish literature published prior to this has also been included, in recognition of the limited publications in this area. Searches were conducted using academic catalogues and Google.

Additionally, the researchers from ScotCen drew upon existing literature searches conducted by the Scottish Government, as well as literature identified by stakeholders and members of the Study’s Research Advisory Group. The documents reviewed included journal articles, grey literature, policy documents and relevant websites, including those of government bodies and are referenced at the end of the document.