Incoming undergraduates who were pooled from Trinity could receive a bursary of up to £4,050 in the next academic year, the College announced on Thursday (31/3).

The Trinity Maintenance Grant means that all current Trinity undergraduates (and those starting in 2022, 2023 and 2024) who are eligible for the Cambridge Bursary scheme will receive a flat rate of £4,050 a year from this October.

Eligible freshers starting in Michaelmas who applied to Trinity but were later pooled to another college will also get funding, with the amount received from other bursaries and scholarships on top of the Cambridge Bursary subtracted from the full grant.

The College says the grant was introduced out of a “strong desire to encourage applications from students from less advantaged backgrounds” and that they want to “ensure that no one is discouraged from applying to Trinity College for financial reasons.”

On the extension of funding to students from other colleges accepted via the Winter and August Pools, they said: “We believe that a student taken from one of these ‘Pools’ by another College should not be disadvantaged compared with one who is accepted for entry at their preferred College.”

According to the College, the sum of £4,050 is the estimated average rent cost for a single-person room at Trinity in the academic year 2022-23.

Trinity’s Access Officer Harry Devlin said that the grant will “open the doors of Trinity to disadvantaged students, especially those who do not receive a full maintenance loan” and that he “glad” eligible students will “have more of a security blanket.”

Addressing the flaws in existing sources of student funding, he said: “Even when home situations improve, the full-scale of financial issues faced by working-class families is not taken into consideration. I know from many of my friends that even though salaries can increase there is often debt to be paid and thus it can be difficult for families to support their children.

“This grant takes steps towards acknowledging how loans and bursaries don’t address this full image.”

Tayla Hardy, president of Trinity College Students’ Union expressed hope that “over the coming years more students from backgrounds like my own will be able to consider higher education” and that the grant will “help to level things out a little more” within the student community.

However, she also acknowledged that “some students who may narrowly miss out on the threshold to qualify for this will still face similar struggles”, adding: “I hope the College will continue to support students and help with any kind of financial concern.”

The scheme comes as the University and its colleges have attempted to improve access through increased financial support for students in recent years, with St John’s launching a full bursary programme for 40 students last May.