Following the publication of the Government White Paper in 2011, the new HE Funding environment from 2012/13 has brought new challenges and new opportunities.

Universities in England are operating in an environment where students are demanding better quality education and a better HE experience, whilst looking for more help to achieve improved outcomes.

The OFFA key guidelines for 2012/13 require each institution to demonstrate through their Access Agreement that they are working to:

• Create a better student experience
• Deliver a better targeted and more effective use of expenditure
• Provide data for monitoring and evaluating the use of this expenditure
• Engage the academic community into improving educational gain
• Improve student retention
• Enable a greater focus on outcomes and targets

Each institution's Access Agreement reflects their response to a number of core considerations:

• Their current performance against key retention and WP benchmarks
• Striking an effective balance between fee waivers, accommodation, cash
  and institutional services to support their WP and retention strategies
• The potential impact of Core and Margin proposals
• Targeting of bursaries to enhance the learning experience and outcomes
• Which forms of "support in kind" are OFFA countable within the new NSP framework
• Competitive positioning and differentiation