FT Students & Income Support

GEEGEE8

Sorry, question in general. I may be going uni in sept and not sure what help I can get

Foggy-Karis

And GeeGee: You can only claim housing benefit as a student, if you have limited capability for work, i.e on ESA or Incapacity Benefit. Or DLA. As a student you are exempt from council tax anyway.

leebee11_2

To Foggy-Karis, thanks!

divastrop

leannebarry1 wrote: »

Hi,
Sorry I haven't been on since posting. Yes we are both continuing next year, my partner going into his final year and I am going into my second year.
Thanks for all the responses. We get the maintenance loans, parent learning allowance and special support grants. My partner gets the Uni bursary, but I don't.
So if I claim, falling into the qualifying group of being pregnant with 11 weeks to go (in 3 weeks time) can I claim on my partner's behalf too?
Thanks for all your help!

I am currently getting IS for myself and my husband on the grounds of sickness, so I would imagine that you would be able to claim for both of you as the last 11 weeks of pregnancy are usually assessed in the same way as sickness, although that may have changed under ESA rules?

BERFFRO

MrsManda wrote: »

I don't understand why students with an income of £11k a year would be treated any differently to non-students with an income of £11k a year when it came to accessing benefits even if the SLC stated that the £11k was only for 42 weeks of the year.



(£11k is a rough figure to be used as an example)

I totally agree, I lost my job at the beginning of the year and my partner was a full time student(She has had to quit to look for work long story really pived off about this) Anyway as i was entitled to HB as i was unemployed i was honest and told them my partner was a student gave them loans etc worse thing ever.

The loan amount is much more than JSA would be a week less even i would imagine with travelling, And you've got to pay it back! Why does it have to be classed as income? if i took a 10k loan out that wouldn't be classed as income would it? All of my partners loans went on paying the rent which was £115 a week! Now we have nothing left.

Best thing is we still never received a penny in HB.

Oldernotwiser

BERFFRO wrote: »

The loan amount is much more than JSA would be a week less even i would imagine with travelling, And you've got to pay it back! Why does it have to be classed as income? if i took a 10k loan out that wouldn't be classed as income would it? All of my partners loans went on paying the rent which was £115 a week! Now we have nothing left.

.

Student loans are frequently never repaid and are provided to pay for rent and living costs. It therefore seems perfectly reasonable that they should be considered as income.

BERFFRO

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Student loans are frequently never repaid and are provided to pay for rent and living costs. It therefore seems perfectly reasonable that they should be considered as income.

Fair enough, But why cant you claim HB as a couple if one is a full time student?

Most benefit's are never repaid either! Some people will stay on benefits all their life!:eek:

leebee11_2

I know what you mean. I understand why they do it as it is for living costs, but at the same time, in essence we have had to take out a loan to pay our rent? Whih if I wasn't a student I would not be expected to do? Ah well. I think you can claim even if one is a student, but they will look at the student finance so chances are you wouldn't get anything anyway! We get £4 HB a week.... not really worth it, but mkaes it easier for the summer period if a claim is already open I guess?

dscnty

Hi there

See below from Direct Gov website where it advises about students and benfits and also what income is taken in when calculating entitlement to benefits.

Types of student support which are counted as income

Types of student support counted as income are:

• the majority of any Maintenance Loan you are entitled to, even if you choose not to take it out
• Adult Dependants' Grant
• Access to Learning Fund payments meant to help with general living costs (though in some circumstances, all or part of the payment may be disregarded)
• Maintenance Grant (available to full-time students who started their course in September 2006 or later)
• bursaries (available to full-time students who started their course in September 2006 or later) that are not for course-related costs, or childcare

Types of student support which are not counted as income

The following will not count as income:

• Higher Education Grant (for full-time students whose courses began in 2004/2005 or 2005/2006)
• Tuition Fee Grant (for full-time students whose courses began before September 2006)
• Tuition Fee Loan
• Childcare Grant
• Parents' Learning Allowance
• Access to Learning Fund payments that are not for general living costs
• Special Support Grant (available to full-time students who started their course in September 2006 or later, and fall within the groups of students listed in the Income Support or Housing Benefit regulations)
• bursaries (available to full-time students who started their course in September 2006 or later) that are for course-related costs, or childcare

If you get other forms of support, speak to your student adviser at university or college to find out whether they are counted as income when working out your entitlement to benefits.



Good luck