Student Loans & Grants 2020-21
The student support package offered by the government is available to most* full-time, home, undergraduate, first degree students.
The main student finance package includes:
Students who started in 2016-17 or earlier may also be eligible for:
Tuition fee loans pay for your course. Maintenance loans and grants help with living costs (e.g. accommodation, books, bills).
You have to pay back loans but you don’t need to pay back grants.
You may also be eligible for extra help on top of this, e.g. if you study abroad.
The rules are different if your course started before September 2012.
*Please see the previous study page if you have previously completed an undergraduate degree.
How and when to apply
Students apply for student finance every year of their course.
You don’t need a confirmed place at university or college to apply.
New and continuing students starting in 2020 are expected to be able to apply from March 2020 with a deadline of 31 May 2020.
You can still apply after this date, but your funding assessment may not be ready in time for the start of term in September.
Applications take between 6-8 weeks to be assessed by student finance, we recommend all students make their applications as soon as possible in order to have all funding in place by the start of term.
There are different arrangements in place for applying for support, depending on where you normally live:
If you normally live in England
All students in 2020-21 should apply online through Student Finance England. Applications are available online from March 2020 onwards.
The contact number for Student Finance England is 0300 100 0607.
If you normally live in Wales
New and continuing students can apply online at the Student Finance Wales website.
Alternatively you can call the Student Finance Wales Contact Centre on
0300 200 4050 to request an application form.
If you normally live in Scotland
The Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) will be accepting online applications for student support from around April 2020. You should contact SAAS for information about arrangements in Scotland.
SAAS can be contacted on 0300 555 0505, or you can visit them online.
If you normally live in Northern Ireland
You can apply for student support online via Student Finance Northern Ireland and can contact them at 0300 100 0077.
Other EU nationals
If you are an EU national or the family member of an EU national, you can get information about the financial support arrangements while you are studying at college in England from the Student Finance Services Non-UK Team. The team can be contacted at (+44) (0) 141 243 3570.
The Government has confirmed that EU students starting university in the 2020/21 academic year will have access to Student Finance England funding for the duration of their course in England.
Please see here for further information on the continuation of EU student funding for 2020/21.
Where can I get more information?
Further information, including a wide range of forms and guides, is available at GOV.UK.
Disclaimer
The College has tried to give students an early opportunity to begin their research of student funding. Although every effort has been made to ensure that information provided is both helpful to prospective candidates and accurate at the time of its publication, it is possible that some information may be outdated or superseded before the start of the 2019-20 academic year.