Benefits for mature students help required please

sandrac02

Hi I am a mature student, been made redundant after 13 years on 30th June 2011. I have applied for housing benefit & council tax benefit, no decision has yet been received. I applied for income support which was refused, not sure why they did mention that I needed a disability, and it was suggested I apply for job seekers instead. I am a little confused as I have started a full time college course Access to Nursing and would hope to go to university next year. Does anyone know what benefits I am entitled to or been in a similar situation, as Ive never claimed before and am totally confused.

My daughter who is 22 lives with me she is not at work or on any benenfits, but is at university, full time doing her nursing degree.

Any adivce would be helpful. Thanks

sunnyone

sandrac02 wrote: »

Hi I am a mature student, been made redundant after 13 years on 30th June 2011. I have applied for housing benefit & council tax benefit, no decision has yet been received. I applied for income support which was refused, not sure why they did mention that I needed a disability, and it was suggested I apply for job seekers instead. I am a little confused as I have started a full time college course Access to Nursing and would hope to go to university next year. Does anyone know what benefits I am entitled to or been in a similar situation, as Ive never claimed before and am totally confused.

My daughter who is 22 lives with me she is not at work or on any benenfits, but is at university, full time doing her nursing degree.

Any adivce would be helpful. Thanks

You are not in a group that can claim IS, how are you planning to support yourself while you are at college?

ALG is £30 pw and thats the only thing I can think of that you can claim apart from LHA/HB and council tax benefit.

Macro_3

sunnyone wrote: »

ALG is £30 pw and thats the only thing I can think of that you can claim apart from LHA/HB and council tax benefit.

She won't be entitled to HB/CTB either if she is a full time student unless she is a lone parent/disabled.

anderson105

Yes i agree.

squif33

As far as i'm aware, you can't claim jobseekers either if you're in full time education, which I believe is 12 hours or over per week. (I did an access course 4 years ago and that was the stuation then- it may have changed). You could apply to the college's learning fund to help pay for college related costs such as travel and books, but you would be expected to find work to support yourself. As far as i'm aware there would be nothing stopping you being able to claim some housing benefit/ council tax benefit as well, how much you get will depend on your income. As for uni, as the other poster said, you can only claim housing benefit if you are disabled or a lone parent. As both people in your household will be students, you will be exept from council tax though. You should get a bursery and maintaience loan to live off when you're at uni, which should be enough to cover your basic living costs.

Hope this helps
Claire

sunnyone

Macro wrote: »

She won't be entitled to HB/CTB either if she is a full time student unless she is a lone parent/disabled.

Just no council tax then with both her and her daughter being full time students if no one else lives with them, I forgot about full time students not being eligable for HB.

Oldernotwiser

OP, I think that you're going to need to use your redundancy money to support yourself while you do the Access course as you won't be eligible for any benefits, except for not needing to pay council tax.

I would look at getting a couple of shifts as a care assistant to bring in some extra money as well as to give you the experience you'll need to get on a nursing course.

Good luck.