Benefits

As a general rule, full-time students cannot claim benefits. There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as lone parents or those with a disability. The time of year can also affect your eligibility. There are also some benefits that are unaffected by your student status. These are Child Benefit, and Child/Working Tax Credit if you still receive these legacy benefits.

You can read more about these exceptions in the sections below.

As part-time students don’t usually get support for living costs while they study, being a student rarely affects your entitlement to benefits but it also doesn’t excuse you from meeting the conditions of any benefits. For example, if you must remain available for work in order to claim benefits, you cannot use  studies as a reason for being exempt from this.

If you are a part-time student on a low income, you should ensure you are claiming the benefits you are entitled to claim and should seek advice from your local council's benefit advice team.

Many part-time students can apply for Discretionary and Childcare Funds. These funds can contribute to the costs of books, course materials, travel and childcare that you face as a direct result of your studies.

Most benefit agencies will understand that this income is for study related costs only. However, if your benefit office questions any income you receive from us, or try to reduce or stop your benefits as a result, please let us know and we will write them a letter explaining the purpose of the funds.

If you have been unable to progress as a result of having reassessments or repeating a period of study, your student status can impact your entitlement to both benefits and student support.

If you are repeating a period of study, are registered as a full-time student, and are accessing the standard package of student support, you are classed as a full-time student for the purposes of benefits and will generally be unable to claim unless you meet the exceptions noted below.

If you are resitting exams but are registered as an assessment only student, you are still treated as a full time student during this time. Assessment Only students are unable to claim student support, and are also unable to claim benefits unless you meet the exceptions noted below.

If you want to find out more about your student funding options when you have resits, please visit our dedicated webpage.

Note: You also continue to count as a full-time student if you are doing re-sits after the official end date of your course. This means your student support will end at the end of term, but you remain unable to claim benefits until you complete your resits, unless you are also part of an exception group.

Who can apply for Council Tax exemption?

Full-time students can apply for this. To count as a full-time student, your course must:

• last at least 24 weeks, AND
• involve at least 21 hours of study per week

How this works in practice

Example 1: Full time student lives alone in rented property. Student can apply for exemption.

Example 2: Student shares rented property with other students. All students living at the property must apply individually for exemption.

Example 3: Student lives with one other adult who is not a student. If you are living with a spouse or partner, they will still be liable for council tax, meaning you cannot claim a full exemption, but your student status should entitle them to a discount.

Example 4: Student lives with 2 or more adults who are not students. No discount will be applied unless the non-students have their own reasons to apply for exemption or Council Tax Reduction. Please contact your local council if you are unsure.

Continuing students

If you are continuing on the same course of study (progressing or repeating a period of study), exemption should continue during the summer break. You must remember to apply for exemption at the start of each academic year until you complete or abandon your course.

Changing courses

If you change courses or complete your undergraduate course and decide to pursue postgraduate studies, you will not be entitled to exemption for the period in between. If you are unemployed or on a low income, you may be able to claim Council Tax Reduction instead. You should reach out to your local council to check if you are eligible. It’s important to note that in such circumstances, you are not considered to be a continuing student for benefit purposes therefore you should seek advice regarding your entitlement to benefits.

Final year students with resits or extensions

Your exemption ends on the date your course officially ends. Resits and extensions do not alter this date If you are unemployed or on a low income, you may be able to claim Council Tax Reduction instead. You should reach out to your local council to check if you are eligible. It’s important to note that in such circumstances, you are no longer considered to be a student for benefit purposes therefore you should seek advice regarding your entitlement to benefits.

How to arrange this

To support your application to the Local Authority, you will need to request information from UWS as confirmation of your student status and eligibility. 

Full guidance on how to do this can be found online here.

If you have any queries or issues with this process, please contact The Hub who will be able to help.

You may claim Child Benefit if you’re responsible for one or more children under 16 (or under 20 if they stay in approved education or training).

There’s no limit to how many children you can claim for and your student status will not affect your entitlement.

You may have to pay a tax charge if your (or your partner’s) individual income is over £50,000.

Further information can be found on the UK Government website.

Students remain entitled to Child Maintenance and student income will not affect the amount of Child Maintenance you receive. Child Maintenance will be taken into consideration when applying for some elements of student funding.

Further information can be found on the UK Government website.

If you are used to receiving Universal Credit before you begin your studies, read on to find out how you student status will impact your entitlement. You should not expect this to continue unchanged.

Your student status will impact whether you can apply for Universal Credits during your studies, and we explain this below. If you are eligible to apply for Universal Credits while a student, your student funding is then considered during the assessment, so being eligible to apply won’t always mean that you are eligible to receive a Universal Credits Award.

Part students remain eligible to apply for Universal Credits without their student status impacting this.

Not many full-time students are eligible for Universal Credits during their studies. Some groups who can apply include those who have children, or those who have a disability that leads to a DLA or PIP award. If you have a partner, you may be eligible to apply as a couple if your partner is not a student, or where you are both students and either of you fit into the categories above.

Remember, being eligible to apply for Universal Credits won’t always mean that you are eligible to receive a Universal Credits award, so let’s look at how your student funding would impact any Universal Credits award.

If you have student income it will usually count as income for Universal Credits, and they will take almost all of your student income into account. This includes a student loan, young student bursary, dependents grant, lone parent grant, paramedic, nursing, and midwifery bursary and care experienced bursary.

Any Independent Student Bursary, Estranged Student Bursary, Tuition Fees, Disabled Students’ Allowance, Childcare Grants, or Travel Expenses are disregarded.

The Universal Credit calculation is based on the length of your academic year, no matter how you choose to receive your award. As a result of this, if you are a traditional student studying in Terms 1 and 2, with a summer break, you are likely to find that you are entitled to £0 Universal Credit during term time, but an award in the summer months when they do not take student funding into account.

From 2024/25, if you are a continuing undergraduate student, you must choose if you want your student funding paid during term-time only, or if you want to spread this over the full year. We must stress that the total amount of funding you are entitled to will not change, you simply decide how this is divided up

It’s important to think about the full year ahead when making your decision, especially if you are a student who is eligible to apply for Universal Credits during your studies.

Term-time only payments:
Pros: Larger monthly instalments.
Cons: No payments during summer break.

Year-round payments:
Pros: Source of income every month, even summer.
Cons: Monthly payments will be less as the student funding will be divided by 12.

EXAMPLE IF YOU ARE OVER 25*, CARE EXPERIENCED AND A LONE PARENT:

Care Experienced Bursary + Special Support Loan (new for 24/25) + Lone Parent Grant = £9,000 + £2,400 + £1,305 = £12,705

SAAS funding over term time only:

• SAAS will give you £1,270.50 each month for 8 months and a double payment of £2,541 in month 1.
• You will receive no UC during the academic year due to your basic income from SAAS exceeding your entitlement. UC generally treats the academic year as 8 months. Your UC was worked out only on the Bursary and Lone Parent Grant elements.
• During summer vacation you will receive £0 SAAS but will receive your full UC, which works out to be £1,088.32 for 4 months in the summer.
• TOTAL INCOME FOR THE YEAR = £12,705 SAAS and £4,353.28 UC

SAAS Funding over 12 months:

• SAAS will give you £1,058.75 per month.
• You will receive no UC during 8 months of the academic year.
• During the summer vacation you will receive £1,088.32 UC for 4 months in the summer.
• This means your income during term time is £1,058.75per month and your income during summer is £2,147.07 per month.
• TOTAL INCOME FOR THE YEAR = £12,705 SAAS and £4,353.28 UC

EXAMPLE IF YOU ARE OVER 25*, UNDERGRADUATE AND A LONE PARENT:

Student Loan + Independent Student Bursary + Lone Parent Grant = £10,400 + £1,000 + £1,305 = £12,705

NB: The Student Loan rate is increasing from 24/25 as it will include a Special Support Loan element of £2,400 (new for 24/25), which is disregarded when calculating Universal Credits.

SAAS funding over term time only:

• SAAS will give you £1,270.50 each month for 8 months and a double payment of £2,541 in month 1.
• You will receive £35 UC per month during the academic year. UC generally treats the academic year as 8 months. Your UC was worked out only on £8,000 of the Student Loan and the Lone Parent Grant elements.
• During term time your monthly income is £1,305.69
• During summer vacation you will receive £0 SAAS but will receive your full UC, which works out to be £1,088.32 for 4 months in the summer.
• TOTAL INCOME FOR THE YEAR = £12,705 SAAS and £4,634.80 UC

SAAS Funding over 12 months:

• SAAS will give you £1,058.75 per month.
• You will receive £35 UC per month during the academic year.
• During the summer vacation you will receive £1,088.32 UC for 4 months in the summer.
• This means your income during term time is £1,093.94 per month and your income during summer is £2,147.07 per month.
• TOTAL INCOME FOR THE YEAR = £12,705 SAAS and £4,634.80 UC

*Universal Credits can differ for those under 25. These figures are representative examples only.

Further information can be found on the UK Government website. 

You student status will not affect your entitlement to DLA/PIP and will be disregarded in applications for student support.

Further information can be found here on the UK Government website.

Scottish Child Payment helps towards the costs of supporting your family. It's a weekly payment of £20 that you can get for every child you look after who's under 6 years of age. You'll get the payment every 4 weeks if your application is successful.

Find out more here.

Best Start Grant has replaced the Sure Start Maternity Grant in Scotland. You can only apply for Best Start Grant if you live in Scotland. If you live somewhere else in the UK, you can apply for the Sure Start Maternity Grant.

Best Start Grant is three cash payments that you can apply for if you're a parent or a carer.

You can get Best Start Grant payments if you have a child who's the right age for a payment, and as long as you receive, or will receive, one of one of the following benefits:

• Child Tax Credit
• Universal Credit
• Income Support
• Pension Credit
• Working Tax Credit
• Housing Benefit
• Income-based Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), not 'contribution based' JSA
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), not 'contribution based' ESA

Remember that you might not start to qualify for the above benefits until your baby is born, so even if you don’t get the benefits now, you might later.

Best Start Grant includes 3 one-off cash payments:

Pregnancy and Baby Payment (£600, or £300 for a second or subsequent child) You can apply for the Pregnancy and Baby Payment from 24 weeks pregnant up to the day your baby is 6 months old.

Early Learning Payment (£250).You can apply from your child's second birthday up to the day your child is 3 years 6 months old.

School Age Payment (£250)

The application details are online here. You can apply online or get help to apply by phoning 0800 182 2222.

The Funeral Support Payment is a one off payment from Social Security Scotland to help people on low income benefits with a contribution towards the cost of a funeral.

This replaces the Department for Work and Pension’s Funeral Expenses Payment in Scotland. If you have already claimed the DWP benefit, you cannot make an additional claim for this new benefit.

To be able to make a claim, the claimant or their partner must be in receipt of one of the following benefits:

• Universal Credit (UC)
• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Income related Employment and Support Allowance
• Pension Credit
• Housing Benefit
• Child Tax Credit (CTC)
• Disability or severe disability element of Working Tax Credit

Applications for the Funeral Support Payment are accepted from the date of death, up until six months after the funeral has taken place. This means that anyone who meets the eligibility for the Funeral Support Payment and has already paid for a funeral within the last 6 months will be able to apply retrospectively, as long as they haven’t already received a Funeral Expenses Payment from DWP. So if you only qualify for one of these gateway benefits during summer break out with term time, you may still apply in retrospect providing it is within the 6 month window.

As well as being on one of the qualifying benefits, the applicant (or their partner) MUST also meet the following criteria:

• The applicant must have the nearest relationship to the person who has died. (This is determined by the family hierarchy lists from the Burial and Cremation (Scotland) Act 2016.)
• The applicant must be responsible for the payment of the funeral
• The applicant must live in Scotland
• The person who has died must have lived in the UK at the time of death
• The funeral must take place in the UK, or in some cases in a member state of the European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway or Switzerland

An eligibility checker is included at the beginning of the online form and on page two of the paper application form so you can ensure you do meet the criteria before applying.

What you will get:

Funeral Support Payment is a part-payment and will cover some, but likely not all, of the funeral costs. This is dependent on individual preference of funeral choices and varying fees for services across Scotland. If eligible, the amount the applicant will receive will depend on what they have claimed and what funds were left by the person who died.

Funeral Support Payment can cover:

• Burial and cremation costs (these costs do vary throughout the country so the government has published reasonable local costs they will pay - )
• Flat rate for any other expenses - £700 for the majority of applications and £120 if the person who died had made provision for their funeral through a funeral plan
• Some travel costs, document costs and medical costs

Other key points to note:

Only 1 person per funeral can make a claim.

The death must be registered before making the claim and if you have a funeral director in place, giving consent for them to speak to Social Security Scotland will make the process easier and more efficient

Payments can be made directly to the claimant or to the chosen funeral director.

The payment is a contribution towards the cost of the funeral the applicant is arranging/has arranged and the decision on what they use this money for is up to them. In most cases, it will cover the burial or cremation costs and help towards other funeral costs such as funeral director’s fees, a coffin or flowers

The funds are non-repayable and are not a loan, however, if the person who died left financial assets this will be recovered from their estate

Decisions are reached quickly and applicants should have their decision within 10 working days of the application and relevant supporting documents being received by Social Security Scotland

To make an application:

Call freephone on 0800 182 2222 to complete the application over the phone or to request a paper application form. Or go to mygov.scot/funeral-support-payment

You cannot make a new claim for Tax Credits, but this information may help if you are you still receiving this legacy benefit.

Being a full-time student does not affect your entitlement to Tax Credits however some elements are taken into account when assessing your entitlement for student support.

Tax Credits are provided from the government to help families or individuals on a low income. You claim on your own if you are single, or jointly with your partner if you are married, in a civil partnership or living together.

There are two types of Tax Credit:

• Child Tax Credit for those responsible for at least one child or young person
• Working Tax Credit for those working a minimum number of hours, but on a low income

There is also a childcare element of Working Tax Credit for those who need to use childcare to be able to work.

Many of our students are parents and will receive Child Tax Credits. However, due to the minimum number of work hours necessary to claim Working Tax Credits, many of our students, particularly lone parents, are unable to meet this requirement without it impacting on their studies.

Working Tax Credits are taken into account when applying for student support, but Child Tax Credits are not.

You will find further information on the UK Government's website.

You cannot make a new claim for Income Support, but this information may help if you are you still receiving this legacy benefit.

As a general rule, full-time students cannot usually claim Income Support while they study. This is because students are expected to finance their studies and living expenses through loans and grants.

There are a few exceptions to this rule which would allow students to apply, including:

• Single parents if their youngest or only child is under five years old*
• Those in receipt of Carer's Allowance
• Those who are incapable of work because of pregnancy or have 11 weeks or less before their expected week of childbirth

Those in receipt of Statutory Sick Pay

If you fall into one of the above categories, this may mean you are eligible to apply for Income Support, but your student support will usually be too high for you to qualify during term time. If this is the case you may be entitled to this during the summer break.

*If your child is over 5, you may be eligible for Job Seekers Allowance.

If you receive Income Support during term time, this is taken into account when applying for student support.

Part time students can continue to claim this benefit throughout their studies.

Further information can be found on the UK Government's website.

As a general rule, full-time students cannot usually claim New Style Job Seeker's Allowance while they study, even if unemployed and looking for work. This is because students are expected to finance their studies and living expenses through loans and grants.

There are a few exceptions to this rule which would allow students to apply during the summer break, including:

• Single parents
• A member of a couple with a child where both of you are full-time students

If you receive New Style Job Seekers Allowance during term time, this is taken into account when applying for student support.

Part-time students can continue to claim this benefit throughout their studies.

Further information can be found on the UK Government's website. 

Employment and support allowance (ESA) is for people who have limited capability for work because of illness or disability.

There is a contributory and an income-related ESA. Contributory ESA is for people who have paid national insurance contributions. Income-related ESA is means tested and is for people whose income and capital are low enough. It is possible to receive one or both types of ESA.

Students can claim contributory ESA providing that they meet the eligibility criteria and satisfy the limited capability for work test.

Students can only claim income-related ESA as a full-time student if you are also in receipt of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

ESA is taken into account when applying for student support.

Part time students can continue to claim this benefit throughout their studies.

Further information can be found on the UK Government's website.  

Housing Benefit can help you pay your rent if you’re unemployed, on a low income or claiming benefits. It’s being replaced by Universal Credit.

You can only make a new claim for Housing Benefit if either of the following apply:

• you have reached State Pension age
• you’re in supported, sheltered or temporary housing

If you have a live claim, the following student groups will remain eligible:

• disabled students
• students who are responsible for children
• students in receipt of income support or income based jobseeker's allowance (during the summer break)

However, if you fall into one of the above categories, your student support may be too high for you to qualify.

You will find further information here.

Dumfries and Galloway Council - information on benefits for those living in this council area

North Lanarkshire Council - information on benefits for those living in this council area

South Lanarkshire Council - benefits and money advice for those living in this council area

North Ayrshire Council - information on benefits for those living in this council area

South Ayrshire Council - information on benefits for those living in this council area

Renfrewshire Council - benefits and debt advice for those living in this council area

Glasgow City Council - information on benefits for those living in this council area

Single Parents - a website for single parents with advice on a number of topics, ranging from money and benefits to domestic violence and illness.

Turn 2 Us - advice on the pending benefits changes and a timetable showing when they are likely to take effect.

Advice Renfrewshire - a one-stop-shop website bringing together all the support services in the area on one page.

Shelter Scotland - Specialist advice on Housing, Money & Debt, and Welfare Benefits 

Citizens Advice Scotland – Specialist advice on Housing, Money & Debt, and Welfare Benefits

Home Energy Scotland - Free, impartial advice on energy saving, keeping warm at home, renewable energy, greener travel, cutting water waste & more.