Eligibility for financial help
Before you apply for student finance, you need to check if you and your course are eligible. The rules on eligibility can be complicated, and the information on this page doesn’t cover all circumstances.
But it offers a general guide on whether you’ll be eligible for student finance if you:
- are doing a higher education course - like a first or ‘undergraduate’ degree - or a postgraduate course of Initial Teacher Training
- normally live in England, and
- are studying anywhere in the UK
If this doesn’t apply to you, there are different rules on eligibility - see ‘What if these rules on eligibility don’t apply to you?’ below.
To qualify for the government’s standard student finance package, you must meet certain conditions – based on where you live, the type of course you’re doing and several other factors.
There are two steps to confirming your eligibility for student finance. You’ll need to check that:
In order to get student finance, both you and your course must be 'eligible'. This means meeting certain requirements – based, for example, on where you normally live and whether you've studied a higher education course before.