Uni loan/ Bursary

[lizzieandzara]

Is this counted as part of my income? I get around £1500 every four months to help with uni costs... Will it go up once I have a child to look after?

 

[Angel21]

Hi, I can't be totally sure in your case, but when I did my nurse training I was bursaried, and then had a student loan for my degree, and it was not classed as "taxable income", that was 4 years ago now though x

 

[kit603]

Hi hun,

It depends what you mean by is it counted as income. I know when I got made redundant last year my sole source of income was my university bursary/maintenance grant and loans and some places counted them as income and some didn't. For example, when I applied for council tax and housing benefit they considered my loans and maintenance grant to be an income and used it when working out my entitlement.

I know that students with children do get some extra help from the Government whilst they're still at university. You can apply for a Childcare Grant which pays up to £148.75 a week towards childcare and the Parents' Learning Allowance which could give you between £50 and £1,508 a year. They're both means tested like the maintenance grant and bursaries but I know that the Childcare Grant and the Parent's Learning Allowance aren't counted as an income when you apply for other benefits like housing/council tax and child/working tax credits.

On a general note... once you have depedants of your own you can be assessed as an independant student so if you're student finance claims are usually assessed based on your parent's income you can now apply for it to be assessed based on your own which might mean you qualify for extra help anyway like the maintenance grants if you're income is lower than your parents. (Obviously I don't know what you already get or how you're assessed at the moment). Also, if you have a dependant then a small amount of your annual earnings won't be included when you're working out your entitlement to student finance. I can't remember what the actual figure is but if it was like £1800 a year per child and the cut off point for a bursary is £25,000 a year and you earn £26,000 then they'd discount £1800 a year off your earnings because you'd have a child so your earnings would now be £24,200 meaning you'd qualify for a bursary. If that makes sense... Lol.

Also... if you are a student AND single-parent or if you and your partner are both students then you may be eligible to apply for income support, housing benefit and/or council tax benefit for all our part of the year so it's worth checking.

Hope that helps!

 

[lizzieandzara]

Thankyou I was living with my parents last time I applied for my student loans and now I am living with my boyfriend, hopefully my maintainence loan will go up but im not counting on it, we dont seem to be entitled to much because he earns 20k+ even though im on a measly £80 a week lol.

 

[kit603]

Thankyou I was living with my parents last time I applied for my student loans and now I am living with my boyfriend, hopefully my maintainence loan will go up but im not counting on it, we dont seem to be entitled to much because he earns 20k+ even though im on a measly £80 a week lol.

You'll be better off waiting for baby to be born before you apply for student finance this year, although i'm not sure applications are open yet anyway - strangely enough i've not recieved any letters this year!

Living with your boyfriend isn't enough to be classed as an independent student, which I think is ridiculous! I'm 19 now, have been working since I was 16 and moved out of my paren'ts home 18 months ago but the student finance company still work out my entitlement based on my parents income! However, you should be assessed on just you and your boyfriend's income if you have a child

 

[lizzieandzara]

Thanks Kit! I usually apply around june/july so I will wait untill then