Santander through their Santander Universities initiative is one of the country’s largest corporate investors in higher education having given more than £95m to over 117,000 UK students since 2008. Santander Universities support students from under-represented backgrounds with a focus on getting into higher education, entrepreneurship and employability.

The Santander Universities Scholars is a new £1 million university scholarship programme that will help 100 students from under-represented groups with annual grants of £10,000 over three years. The programme combines this financial assistance to cover the cost of studying with access to networks, internships, and dedicated mentors to help build essential work-ready skills and confidence.

JS Group has been chosen to partner with Santander on the distributing of these funds after a successful project in which 380 UK students received technology grants last year – the Santander Aspire Tech Grant. Santander Universities and JS Group share a common purpose: to support students from diverse and non-traditional backgrounds to fulfil their potential.

Peter Gray, CEO of JS Group, said:

It is a pleasure to be working with the team at Santander Universities who have such a great track record in supporting students here in the UK and globally. Our partnership will not only provide timely financial support for students, it will also provide very useful experience and feedback on engaging directly with students that will inform more ambitious programmes in the future.

Mark Homans, Director of Strategy and Operations at Santander UK, said:

We’re excited to be able to offer direct funding as we will be engaging directly with students and this will complement our on-going work with our partner universities. We are delighted to be working with JS Group as they share our values and passion for student engagement. Our partnership will be utilising their experience, technology platforms and customer service approach that supports over 250,000 students throughout the UK.