YUSU

Money & Finance: Funding your studies

Created: 10/12/2009. Updated: 17/06/2010.

Student finance

The first, and biggest, branch of your funding will come from the student loans company (for home students that is). Applications should be made as early as possible, because they’re notorious for making last minute mistakes and the last thing you want is to be starting off the term worrying about where you rent money is coming from. After your initial application yearly applications should be able to be completed online, with your parent or guardian submitting any extra details/forms as necessary. This tends to come out late in second term/early in third, and it’s wise to do it straight away to avoid it disappearing into your inbox.

Don’t forget, if there’s a 15% or greater change in your parents income then they will reassess your student loan, so send off the paper work.

Student finance (from the SLC) is made up of a few main parts:

Tuition fees: These come straight from the SLC to your institution. Be careful to make sure that you apply for the correct amount of tuition fee at the end of the year, sometimes the “default” figure on the online reapplication system isn’t correct. Check with us (YUSU) if you’re unsure.

Non income assessed loan: The bit that everyone gets. If you want it, you can have it, whatever your parents earn. And because its got a cheap interest rate (0% atm...Although this is likely to go up) you can whack it into an ISA and watch the cash role in. Or, if less fortunate, spend it on rent and books.

Income assessed loan: For those with parents on lower incomes (the cut off rate approaches £40,000 per parent so there’s plenty of people who’ll fit into this) you can often get some extra on top of the basic loan. It still has to be paid back though, so be warned. If you think you’re going to be hard up for any reason next year it’s worth applying for this – there are lots of extra reasons why they might give you money (siblings, divorced parents etc) and the worst they can say is no.

Grants & Bursaries : If you fit the criteria (it’s all on the forms, don’t worry) then you may get extra grants if your parents are on low incomes, especially if they didn’t go to university. This money is free, and doesn’t have to be paid back, so take advantage of it. You don’t have to do anything extra for this though, it’s all part of the application, and if you are eligible for a grant you'll also receive an undergrad bursary from the ui (check the link for info)

The whole process is generally confusing. If you’re stuck with any bits then its best to try the advice lines first, but if it comes to it certainly get in touch with us. It’s especially true if you’re estranged from your parents, have dependents or are generally applying for parts of student finance that aren’t standard – as these processes can be tricky, and you may need some help.

As always you're welcome to com into the ASC, but the University does provide a wide range of information for all students in its student funding page so have a look!