Accessing and paying for higher education

If you're going into higher education, you can get financial support from the government. To do this you need to apply through the Student Finance England service. 

Don't wait until you've been offered a place on a course to find out what student finance you could get. If you're planning to study full-time, use the Student Finance Calculator to get an estimate in advance.  You should apply as early as possible - then you can get on with planning your time at university or college 

Further information can be found on the DirectGov Student finance homepage

For HE Advisors, the practitioners' site supplements this and includes a downloadable 'Quick Start Guide' for 2009 entrants, giving the amounts of grants and loans for full time students at HE level, based on levels of household income. Practitioners Quick Start Guide

For a quick summary of Student finance including what grants or bursaries may be available to you please see the Aimhigher leaflet

Student Finance England has joined Facebook and Twitter.  The latest information is available on these sites as well as at http://www.slc.co.uk/. The link for the SFE "tweets" is: http://twitter.com/sf_england

Money for studying

Student loans

In the past Local Authorities have been responsible for processing student finance applications. That has now changed and applications are now managed by Student Finance England. You can find more information about what you are entitled to and how to apply at Directgov and the Student Finance England websites. Alternatively you can ring Student Finance England on 0845 300 50 90

NHS Student Bursaries and the Social Care Bursary

If you plan to train at university for a career in health or social care, The Department of Health offer no-means tested and means tested bursaries for students in certain subjects. Bursaries are currently available to study social work, occupational therapy, physiotherapy, radiography, orthoptics, dental hygiene, dental therapy, midwifery (Diploma as well), chiropody, dietetics, prosthetics and orthotics, and speech and language therapy. You can find out more by calling the NHS Student Bursaries helpline on 0845 358 6655, the Social Care Bursary helpline on 0845 610 11 22 or visit their website.

For more information on Higher Education please visit the youthZONE website (you can find the link to the right of this page).