What does residual household income include when applying for student finance

leavinghappy

Trying to work out if I'd be entitled to any student grants in Northern Ireland for an Open University course. The PDF guide at the bottom of this page

https://www.studentfinanceni.co.uk/types-of-finance/undergraduate/part-time/tuition-fee-and-living-cost-students/

talks about "residual household income" without defining it. I know it generally means your entire pay after tax, but I did rather hope there would be other deductions (rent or mortgage for example) because the thresholds are very low.

I tried asking Student Finance NI myself, and got a useless copypasted reply refusing to answer the question (saying read the same unclear instructions above that I mentioned I had already read). Does anyone here have better info?

silvercar

Following your top link leads eventually to https://www.studentfinanceni.co.uk/media/1890/sfni_hyap_guide_2627_o.pdf

This describes income as any income subject to income tax. So it isn’t income after tax, but income that is subject to tax. The only deduction I can see is for pension contributions and an allowance if there are other dependents in the household. You lose nothing by applying, other than your time.