Benefits and being a student?

Dory78 · 17 January 2011 at 4:55PM

I am separating from my husband and moving into a rented house next week (hopefully!), I have one 5 yr old daughter and work a part time job of 16 hrs a week at £6.20 an hr. I currently claim WTC, CTC and am hoping to claim HB and CTB once I have moved.

My question is this, a few years ago I toyed with the idea of becoming a student again and (finally!) finishing my degree with the OU however the cost was too prohibitive. Now I believe I would be entitled to get most if not all of the course fees paid so I am once again looking into restarting it, however I wondered if anyone knew if it would affect my benefits at all? Would they go down? Could I in fact claim more? Can anyone point me in the right direction for some advice?

Thanks

dmg24 · 17 January 2011 at 4:57PM

Studying with OU will not affect your benefits.

Dory78 · 17 January 2011 at 6:37PM

Are there any other benefits I could claim whilst being a student? or anything i would be entitled to?

Indie_Kid · 17 January 2011 at 6:41PM

If you live with no other adults, you can claim the 25% single person discount. Then there's the OU materials grant and access to learning fund.

Jowo_2 · 17 January 2011 at 7:00PM

With Working Tax credits, Child Tax Credits, Housing Benefit/LHA, Council Tax benefit and Child Benefit, I'm not sure you'd be eligible for anything else on top of your wage, but you can double check your entitlements on the Turn2us online benefit calculator, which might suggest any missing ones.