Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many disabled students allowance awards have been made to students in higher education in each year since 2015.

Statistics covering Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) payments to English students on higher education courses are published annually by the Student Loans Company (SLC) in the Statistical First Release (SFR) ‘Student Support for Higher Education in England’: http://www.slc.co.uk/official-statistics/financial-support-awarded/england-higher-education.aspx.

Information covering DSA payments made to students on full-time undergraduate, part-time undergraduate, and postgraduate courses can be found in tables 3B, 5A, and 5B of the SFR respectively.

The most recent DSAs data shows that, for full-time undergraduate students domiciled in England, 58,900 students had DSA payments made on their behalf in the 2015/16 academic year. Complete information for 2016/17 is not yet available, however provisional data show that around 54,900 have been paid – a 5% decline on the number paid in 2015/16 at the same point in the academic year. Final data for the 2016/17 academic year are due to be published by SLC in November 2018.