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CHAPTER NINE FUNDING
9.1 This chapter examines attitudes to ILA funding and the amount paid for courses by learners, and also considers the extent to which learners would still have undertaken courses if ILA funding had not been available.
Amount paid and attitudes to funding
9.2 We asked respondents who had undertaken ILA funded courses how much they had personally paid towards their ILA course costs. Those on ILA100 were more likely than people on ILA200 to have paid more than £50 (35% and 20% respectively at the wave 2 interview). Otherwise, the amounts paid were similar between the offers, and did not change significantly over the two waves of the survey.
9.3 At the wave 2 interview, the majority of respondents who had been on ILA funded courses felt the amount that they had contributed was about right (85% of ILA200 participants and 82% on ILA100).
9.4 While most respondents interviewed at wave 2 agreed that they were satisfied with the level of funding provided by the ILA each year towards learning (88% on ILA200 and 84% on ILA100), around two in five indicated that the personal contribution they had to pay might discourage them, by agreeing with the statement that "paying a personal contribution makes you think twice about applying for a course" (40% on ILA200 and 41% on ILA100). This finding should be seen in the context of the proportion who said they would not have undertaken a course without ILA funding (see 9.6 below).
What would have happened without the ILA scheme
9.5 In assessing the impact of the funding provided through the ILA scheme, it is important to examine whether the funding was responsible for people taking up courses or whether they would have done so anyway even if the ILA funding was not available 26. Chart 9.1 shows respondents' assessments of whether they would still have done their course without the ILA funding.
Chart 9.1: Likelihood of undertaking course without ILA funding
Base: All successful applicants at wave 1 who had undertaken a course ( ILA200: 541, ILA100: 477)
9.6 The proportion who said they would still have done the course without ILA funding was higher among those on ILA100 than ILA200 (27% and 16% very likely respectively). On both offers, learners were more likely to say they would have done the course anyway if they had paid more towards the cost of their learning: on ILA200, 23% of those who had paid over £50 said they would have been very likely to do the course without ILA funding (compared with 16% overall), while on ILA100 37% of those who had paid over £100 said this (compared with 27% overall).
9.7 Among respondents who said that they would have done the course without the ILA funding, many also said that the ILA funding did not have any impact on the timing of their studies (49% on ILA200 and 62% on ILA100). Other respondents said that they would have started the course earlier without the funding (15% on ILA200 and 13% on ILA100), while others would have started it later (20% and 12% respectively).
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