By his own admission, his life was falling apart in the early 1990s. Drugs and alcohol were taking over, and his criminal record, already featuring convictions for theft and affray, was threatening to get longer and more serious. However, the difficulties ex-offenders encounter on the road towards acquiring a degree can be immense, as can the task of persuading some people in positions of authority that a criminal conviction should not be a barrier to a higher education place.But if anyone can overcome these twin obstacles, it is Baden, chiefly because he’s been there himself. He might get into trouble.”The fact that Baden increasingly gets unexpected calls like this is good news for Open Book, the organisation he runs at Goldsmiths, part of the University of London. Its aim is to encourage ex-prisoners to see higher education as a realistic option when they come out of jail and, over time, to help them to realise those ambitions.The phone call is proof that the word is slowly getting around on the inside that the organisation exists. And Brighton University is offering five awards a year to elite disabled athletes, an initiative which emphasises that access for disadvantaged groups, the encouragement of excellence and the establishment of a niche marketing opportunity can go hand in hand..

Joe Baden’s mobile phone rings as he’s leaving a caf? couple of streets from Goldsmiths College in south-east London “What were you doing? Smuggling? Was it Class A?” he asks. As his voice lowers, the conversation that follows gives an intriguing insight into the role he plays in helping a unique group of students to make their way into higher education. “Have you got a release date yet?” he asks the voice at the other end of the line. “Send me a portfolio of your work, please.”
The sympathetic note in Baden’s voice mixes with mild annoyance when the conversation comes to an end. “He was on his mobile,” he explains of the prisoner inside Wandsworth jail who has just tracked him down “It’s not allowed. Others will reward entrants who have come through their own sponsored access schemes, including Bolton, Sheffield and Kingston.The study of strategically important subjects – science, medicine, engineering, computing and languages among them – is also encouraged by many universities’ awards.Middlesex tops the list of universities offering sports scholarships, with two £10,000 awards to potential 2012 Olympians, but others encouraging sport include Glamorgan, De Montfort, Loughborough, Swansea and Sussex. Four out of five are offering bursaries to students whose residual family income is between £15,000 to £22,000, while 70 per cent are offering bursaries to students with income thresholds of up to £33,000.Many are using their financial support packages to address other priorities.

Some specifically look to encourage students living locally, among them Liverpool, Kent, Nottingham Trent and Southampton Solent. Some of these schemes are aimed exclusively at lower-income groups, but well over half are to be awarded purely on merit.Nevertheless, it is clear that most of the £300m that universities have set aside from the additional income they will receive from increased tuition fees next year is being targeted at the most financially needy students.Initial analysis by OFFA showed that all universities intending to charge the full annual fee of £3,000 will offer bursaries of more than the required minimum of £300. Traditional academic scholarships, designed to attract the best available talent, are making a comeback in elite universities – including Bristol, Royal Holloway and Keele – which are more accustomed to having a strong field of candidates to select from.The link to academic achievement is made by a number of universities, among them generous offers from Liverpool John Moores, Birmingham, Manchester, Oxford and Imperial College.In total, about a third of universities are establishing new scholarship schemes based on academic merit, ranging from around £500 to £5,000. Middlesex University takes a more familiar marketing approach, offering five £10,000 “Middlesex first” scholarships, on a lottery basis, to applicants who have made it their first Ucas choice.And it is not only new universities which are using the new student support packages as a marketing opportunity. Its justification for this indiscriminate largesse is that an estimated 85 per cent of its student body already comes from low-income and lower socio-economic groups.The University of Central Lancashire, in its agreement with the Government’s Office for Fair Access (OFFA), dresses up its offer of a £1,000-a-year bursary to all new students as a means of cutting the red tape of means-testing and ensuring “that students can be 100 per cent confident of securing a bursary”. Every university has had to come up with a programme of compulsory support bursaries for low-income students, and targeted measures to help other low-participation groups, to complement the financial assistance which will reach an estimated 55 per cent of students through the Government’s new maintenance grants.