HRI is assessed based on gross income (before tax and National Insurance) after accounting for certain costs such as dependents and pensions.
Information on HRI is restricted to English, Welsh and Northern Irish full-time undergraduates who reported their income to the Student Loans Company from 2011-12 onwards.
This excludes those who did not take out a loan or chose not to apply for income-dependent support. In particular, this means both students with HRI too high to qualify for extra support and any students with other indicators of low income would be less likely to report their income and may be underrepresented in the data.
In 2020-21, just under half (42.7 per cent) of full-time undergraduate entrants who were dependent on their parents had household residual income between £1 and £25,000.
Amongst full-time undergraduate students who were independent, 69.8 per cent reported their HRI as £0 in 2020-21.
