OUR HISTORY
We are a trusted friend and expert partner for many universities across the UK. We have a long history of delivering and managing student bursaries, scholarships, emergency cash and other student financial support in ways that drive better investment in student engagement and futures. Our aspiration is to support better learner and life outcomes for all the students we work with.
Our university partners report that we remove administrative and cost burdens for them while providing the data and insight that ensures maximum student benefit for their financial investment in student support.
The JS Group can trace its roots back to 1751 when the bookseller John Smith and Son was founded in Glasgow; we’re an old family firm with decades of experience helping universities to help their students.
For many years we ran the John Smith on-campus bookshops and then in 2002 an opportunity in Botswana changed our direction but not our purpose. The government in Botswana asked the JS Group to help its work to encourage and support students to go to university. They wanted an effective platform to target and administer a series of focussed financial and other support. This project became the genesis of the Aspire platform that we use today to ensure the best use of financial support for our UK partners’ students.
In 2006 with the introduction of fees, UK universities were interested in seeing how the platform could assist them in providing a robust mechanism to ensure that financial support in the form of bursaries and scholarships was targeted to support student retention and success as well as reduce barriers to learning for under-represented student groups. Since that time, over 40 universities and colleges and well over 1 million students have benefitted from our services.
