Students: Finance

(asked on 10th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if he will make it his policy for student loans, bursaries, grants and other student finance to be increased to reflect geographic variations in the cost of living.


Answered by
Nick Gibb Portrait
Nick Gibb
This question was answered on 13th February 2020

The government has announced that maximum grants and loans for living and other costs will increase by 2.9% for the 2020/21 academic year starting in August 2020.

Means-tested grants and loans for living and other costs are a contribution towards a student’s costs while attending university.

The current system bases the amount of support a student is entitled to on the student’s household income rather than on family outgoings. It ensures that the most support is targeted consistently at families from the lowest income backgrounds who need it most. It also ensures that information on income for individual applicants can be effectively processed by Student Finance England who deal with more than one million applications for student support in time for the start of an academic year.

Maximum loans for living costs for the lowest income students living away from their parents’ home and studying at a university in London are set at a higher level than for students studying outside London or living in their parents’ home. This reflects the higher living costs that students attending courses in London may incur

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