Was a full-time student and on JSA

plecka

I was studying a full-time course at uni from Sep 2012-Aug 2013. The official course end date on my transcript says Jan 2014 due to missing the first graduation date because I had some resits in August. The Award Date on my certificate says June 2014.

After I finished everything in August, I relocated back to live with my parents, and after 5 weeks living with them I started claiming JSA. The advisor at the time only looked at my certificate and asked if I'm now available 100% to look for jobs. I said yes and I was able to claim JSA.

Problem is now a job I accepted is doing a background check, and I just found out online that full-time students are not suppose to be able to claim JSA, even if they've received their certificate if the course hasn't officially ended.

How about should I explain this to HR doing the background check? I only have proof that I did indeed relocate in Sep 2013 due to dentist records.

mrxry

I know a friend who went full time (In scotland) but failed 2 modules in his 3rd year and had to do resits at the end of the following academic year and claimed JSA no problem for that 10 months or so as the resits were classed as part time, I cannot give the perfect answer but I know people who have changed from full time to part time and had no real problem with JSA as long as they were under a certain amount of hours and got no loan.

plecka

I may have messed myself up. Last night I sent the email with Job Centre Plus's letter. Seems like HR didn't notice the overlap in the dates or it didn't matter to them. I received an email saying I passed all the background checks, but before I read that email, I just sent another one explaining this overlap studying and claiming JSA at the same time.

Hopefully they don't take their word back on the background check pass.

supermassive

Where did you read that you couldn't claim JSA?

As far as I knew (when working in DWP), the only qualifying criterial is that you're available for, actively looking for, and able to do work if it was offered and that you don't have work at the moment.

With JSA the "assumption" (which we all know is a lie, but overlook) is that if you're offered work, you'll stop whatever it is that isn't paying you (education) in order to take the work.

You might be panicking due to the garbled DWP language used to explain everything.

agrinnall

I can't work out from your post what the period was that you were both in full time study and claiming JSA. You are right (and supermassive is wrong) that being in full time study means that you are not available for work and therefore not eligible for JSA; to claim JSA legitimately you would have had to stop your studies. But without the dates it's hard to see whether you've done anything wrong or not.

ViolaLass

I don't understand why you think the new employer would care about this.

callum9999

supermassive wrote: »

Where did you read that you couldn't claim JSA?

As far as I knew (when working in DWP), the only qualifying criterial is that you're available for, actively looking for, and able to do work if it was offered and that you don't have work at the moment.

With JSA the "assumption" (which we all know is a lie, but overlook) is that if you're offered work, you'll stop whatever it is that isn't paying you (education) in order to take the work.

You might be panicking due to the garbled DWP language used to explain everything.

https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/eligibility

As far as I'm aware you've never been allowed to claim it while in Full-time education. Certainly not within the last 8 years or so.

Viberduo

callum9999 wrote: »

https://www.gov.uk/jobseekers-allowance/eligibility

As far as I'm aware you've never been allowed to claim it while in Full-time education. Certainly not within the last 8 years or so.

It all comes down to what is interpreted as full time, when I was going 5 hours at uni a week I was called in as they had doubts I was part time, they then claimed my degree had 40 hours a week at home reading books and writing essays therefore my course was 45 hours, I should of appealed but was 19 at the time, so for 4 months I just lived off tins of food left by previous tenant, going to homeless food places, selling all my possessions, picking up pennies from the street to buy bread or beans, or every Friday the college canteen gave away all the leftover sandwiches for free so I filled a few bags with them.

I also remember when I was on New Deal I was able to do a college course, and even got extra money(though had to be further education not higher) or I was told I can go to college when I was on the work programme as long as I did weekly sign ons and saw advisor once a week.

callum9999

Viberduo wrote: »

It all comes down to what is interpreted as full time, when I was going 5 hours at uni a week I was called in as they had doubts I was part time, they then claimed my degree had 40 hours a week at home reading books and writing essays therefore my course was 45 hours, I should of appealed but was 19 at the time, so for 4 months I just lived off tins of food left by previous tenant, going to homeless food places, selling all my possessions, picking up pennies from the street to buy bread or beans, or every Friday the college canteen gave away all the leftover sandwiches for free so I filled a few bags with them.

I also remember when I was on New Deal I was able to do a college course, and even got extra money(though had to be further education not higher) or I was told I can go to college when I was on the work programme as long as I did weekly sign ons and saw advisor once a week.

There is no interpretation - either it is full-time or it isn't. If it's a standard 3/4 year degree then it's full time regardless of how many contact hours you have. There is no distinction between having to spend 20 hours in lectures or 20 hours sitting at home writing an essay - study is study.

Viberduo

callum9999 wrote: »

There is no interpretation - either it is full-time or it isn't. If it's a standard 3/4 year degree then it's full time regardless of how many contact hours you have. There is no distinction between having to spend 20 hours in lectures or 20 hours sitting at home writing an essay - study is study.

Totally incorrect, theres a difference between timetabled study and home study, the only real way it comes into account is if its the sort of course that requires specific time spent outside of class and even then its not perfect, i.e a course where you are expected to do something like build electronics, think about it logically, if I did a 12 hour job a week and took work home with me I would still only get paid for 12 hours and classed as working 12 hours, if I did zero study at home even though it was recommended I did a certain amount of study a week it would mean I would still be doing say 6 hours a week class time not 6 plus the recommended 20 hours, if that was the case why would I be unable to get a full time loan!!

And you can do a part time degree in 4 years.

If you want to get into it though, when I was full time at uni a few years ago I commuted to uni and local council refused to give me exemption as my class time was only 16 hours and had 4 hours timetabled study, they told me I had to do at least 20 hours in class to be classed as full time so they classed me as part time, I had to move out of student accomodation because of it.

My friend went to the same uni and failed 2 modules so had to pay for resits and spent a few hours a week studying, he told the DWP this on his application and had no issues claiming.

I cant remember if its 12 or 16 hours they class as full time education either way

callum9999

Viberduo wrote: »

Totally incorrect, theres a difference between timetabled study and home study, the only real way it comes into account is if its the sort of course that requires specific time spent outside of class and even then its not perfect, i.e a course where you are expected to do something like build electronics, think about it logically, if I did a 12 hour job a week and took work home with me I would still only get paid for 12 hours and classed as working 12 hours, if I did zero study at home even though it was recommended I did a certain amount of study a week it would mean I would still be doing say 6 hours a week class time not 6 plus the recommended 20 hours, if that was the case why would I be unable to get a full time loan!!

And you can do a part time degree in 4 years.

If you want to get into it though, when I was full time at uni a few years ago I commuted to uni and local council refused to give me exemption as my class time was only 16 hours and had 4 hours timetabled study, they told me I had to do at least 20 hours in class to be classed as full time so they classed me as part time, I had to move out of student accomodation because of it.

My friend went to the same uni and failed 2 modules so had to pay for resits and spent a few hours a week studying, he told the DWP this on his application and had no issues claiming.

I cant remember if its 12 or 16 hours they class as full time education either way

Which university are you referring to? Unless it's some kind of fly-by-night place, I can't believe that they wouldn't include private study as an integral part of the course. Whether you choose to do it or not is utterly irrelevant - otherwise you could just claim you don't go to half your lectures...

The fact your local council may use a different definition of full or part time is irrelevant.