Part time degree help

stephyt23

Hi everyone.

hoping you can help a friend of mine.

We are studying on a BA Primary Education degree part time and are in year 1. We can apply for finance to pay for our fees and we get £265 as a grant for books. My friend works as a Teaching Assistant and was working full time but had to reduce her days to 3 a week to fit in a day at uni and a day to study. Her two days have been taken over by someone else so she can't get those hours back.

My friend had a relative who was paying her loss of earnings each month as she is a single parent with a mortgage to pay. Unfortunately last year her friends relative informed her they could no longer pay her loss of earnings.

My friend is now in a position where she may have to give up her teaching dream as she can't find any way to make up the money each month. Student finance don't offer anything else, she has looked into charities for grants but they only want to give to people over 25. The university hardship fund only covers things like paying phone bills.

So has anyone got any other avenue we may not have thought of?

MrsManda

Has she spoken to her university's student support department to see if they have any suggestions?
Can she do the degree full time?

Oldernotwiser

If she's a lone parent and working for at least 16 hours a week she can claim Working Tax Credit. If she rents her home she may get help with the rent through HB/LHA.

stephyt23

They can only offer the hardship fund which only covers things like phone bill costs and won't cover her loss of earnings.

She may be able to defer until next year and still keep our tuition fee costs but doing this part time suited her better so she could keep working and fit everything around her studies. She has considered going full time and this could still be a last resort if everything fails.

Thank you for replying

stephyt23

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

If she's a lone parent and working for at least 16 hours a week she can claim Working Tax Credit. If she rents her home she may get help with the rent through HB/LHA.

She say's she gets working tax credits already. It's the money to cover her monthly loss of earnings she needs to find.