Student Fund Support

If you are on an eligible further education course and your household income is less than £35,000* GROSS, we may be able to help you with funding towards the cost of travel to college (you will need to live more than 1.5 miles away from your college campus), equipment and childcare.

*This can increase by £1,000 for each additional dependent child you have aged under 20 living in your home. 

How to apply

Applying for Student Finance

1. Log into your College account (using the same username and password details when you applied for a course). If you can’t remember your login details, you can recover your account details.
2. Look for the ​“Apply for Student Fund Support” button on your account dashboard once you’ve logged in and use this button to apply. The application portal for progressing students will be available from mid-June 2023. All new students should be able to apply from early August 2023.
3. We will ask you to complete a series of questions using drop down answer options regarding your household situation, and support needs such as travel or childcare costs you will be asked to agree to the terms and conditions, please read these carefully.
4. You will be asked to upload your household income evidence. Please read through our guide to Student Finance Income Evidence to find out which evidence you will need to upload when you apply for Student Finance. We have included images for each scenario so you can visually see what we need to look at to assess your application. The address on the Income Evidence you provide must match your home address on your student records. If you are claiming Universal Credit, you can view our guide to Universal Credit Evidence to ensure you are uploading the correct evidence. Please have your evidence ready before you start your application, although you can save and go back in to complete your application later if you need to you. 
5. Once you have reviewed and checked everything click complete and your application will be submitted to us.
6. We will then contact you via the e mail address that is registered to your account.

If you haven’t created an account to apply for a course yet, the student finance application section steps above can be completed at the same time that you create your account and apply for a course.

After submitting your application form

• Please ensure you have submitted the correct evidence to avoid any delays to the processing.
• Before we can process your application, you will need to be fully enrolled.
• Forms will be assessed in date received order subject to funding.

After your application has been processed

• Once your application has been processed, you will be contacted regarding the outcome on what support will be provided should your application be successful. You will need to keep your email and contact numbers up to date as our preferred option of communication will be email and text.

We aim to process applications as quickly as possible after you are fully enrolled. Please wait for us to contact you via email so that we can have all of our staff focussed on completing the assessments.

If you received Free School Meals at school, you may be entitled to them at college.

Separate eligibility criteria apply for free school meal support.

The Government support for Free College Meals is £2.53 per timetabled day. As a college, we may decide to increase this level of support for eligible students. 

As we are not provided this information from the Local Councils or DWP you will need to apply and provide evidence to show your entitlement to Free College Meals. 

Eligible benefits for Free College Meals

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseekers Allowance 
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
• Support under part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 
• Child Tax Credit (provided they are not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income of no more than £16,190, as assessed by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC))
• Working Tax Credit run-on – paid for 4 weeks after someone stops qualifying for Working Tax Credit UC with net earnings not exceeding the equivalent of £7,400 pa (after tax and not including any benefits you get) 

Meal Support in College

There are no legal requirements to offer food to non-Free College Meal students. However, where budgets permit, we may offer some support towards food in college

Funding may be available for your children to have a place at our nursery, Once Upon a Time, based at the Adams Building campus or with an Ofsted registered external provider such as an after-school club or breakfast club, childminder, or nursery.