Finance Assistance
What's available?
While at university or college, your child or partner will have two main costs – tuition fees and living costs. They can apply for student finance to help with both.
All eligible students can get a:
- Tuition Fee Loan to cover the full cost of the fees charged by their university or college
- basic rate of Maintenance Loan to help with living costs, such as rent and bills
The basic rate of Maintenance Loan doesn’t depend on your household income, but they can apply for more that does. Any loans they borrow have to be paid back, but not until they’ve finished or left their course, and their income is over the repayment threshold.
There are also grants available for students who have a disability, including a long-term health condition, mental health condition, or specific learning difficulty, or students who have children or an adult dependant who depends on them financially. These don’t usually have to be paid back.
A student’s university or college may also offer bursaries, scholarships, or other kinds of financial help – it’s always worth checking with them too.
Supporting your child’s application
If you’re supporting your child’s application, your household income is the combined income of you and:
- your child
- your spouse
- your partner
If you’re married, Student Finance England will need your spouse’s income even if you don’t live together, or they’re not the student’s parent.
If you live with your partner, they’ll need to tell Student Finance England about their income even if you weren’t living together during the tax year being asked about.
If you’re separated or divorced, your child should tell us who they live with or have most contact with. If they spend an equal amount of time with both of their parents, they’ll be asked to pick who will support their application.
Remember, household income is based on your circumstances at the start of the academic year. This means that if you get married or start living with your partner before the start of the academic year, Student Finance England will need their details.
Household income doesn’t include any income the student might have from working themselves.
Supporting your spouse or partner’s application
- If your spouse or partner is applying for student finance, the household income is made up of your income only.
- Household income doesn’t include any income the student might have from working themselves.
How to support a student’s application
Once your child or partner has applied for student finance that depends on your household income, you’ll get an email within 24 hours with a link to submit your household income details.
You’ll need to create an account if you haven’t already got one. You must use your own account – you can’t use the same account as your child or partner. When you register, you’ll need to supply your National Insurance number and your personal income for the previous tax year. You should only give Student Finance England your details – if you live with a partner, they’ll ask for their details separately.
If you’ve given Student Finance England your household income details close to your child or partner’s course starting, take a look at the process on what happens next.
Student Finance England might ask you to send evidence if the details you’ve submitted don’t match HMRC’s records.
You can submit an estimate of your financial details for the current tax year, if you think your household income will be at least 15% lower than the previous tax year. Read Student Finance England’s guide to find out how to do this, and to download a Current Year Income (CYI) application form.
Supporting a continuing student
You need to provide your household income details every year of your child or partner’s course.
Your child or partner needs to reapply for student finance each year. When they reapply, you’ll get an email within 24 hours. The email will have a link to sign in to your account, where you must submit:
- your marital status
- any changes to the information you submitted the previous year
- your financial information for the previous tax year
Evidence
You usually don’t need to send Student Finance England evidence of your household income as they check your details with HRMC. They may contact you to ask for evidence of:
- your marital status – if you’re separated or divorced
- your income – if you’re living abroad or finalising your current year income assessment
Don’t worry if this happens – it’s just part of their checks to make sure your child or partner gets the correct amount of funding they’re entitled to.
You should only upload financial evidence they ask for – they’ll destroy these securely once they’ve checked them. Uploading financial evidence, such as a P60, when this wasn’t requested will cause delays to the student getting their money.
It takes six to eight weeks to process applications, so it’s important you upload any evidence Student Finance England needs as soon as possible, so your child or partner gets the correct amount of money in time for the start of their course.
