Adult Education Bursaries

Introduction:

These bursaries and grants are for students studying on full-time courses at English and Scottish long-term residential colleges.

These adult education bursaries for adult residential colleges do not have to be paid back. There is a similar scheme at Coleg Harlech, Wales.

If you are resident in Scotland, you should contact the Student Awards Agency for Scotland. This scheme is not open to current residents of the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man, who should contact their local education authorities.

You may be eligible (subject to certain exceptions) if you:

• Are at least 20 years old before the start of the academic year.
  
  
• Have been resident in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man for 3 years immediately prior to bursary application.
  
  
• Have been settled in the UK within the meaning of the Immigration Act 1971.
  
  
• Have been offered a place at one of the residential colleges in the scheme and be recommended for a bursary.
  
  
• Have not previously attended a course of higher education at a college in the UK and had help from UK public funds to do this or the college where you studied was publicly funded.

If you do not meet the rules for residence in the UK, you may still be eligible if:

• You can show your absence was because you, your husband or wife or parents were temporarily employed abroad.
  
  
• You are a member or family member of the regular armed forces.
  
  
• You, your husband or wife or parents are recognised as a refugee.
  
  
• You have been granted exceptional leave to remain in the UK. You must meet the residency requirement but are exempt from the requirement to be settled in the UK.
  
  
• You, your husband or wife or parents are UK nationals and have been living or working in another member country of the European Economic Area (EEA) for 3 years, returned to the UK.
  
  
• You, your husband or wife or parents are nationals of another EEA country, have lived there for 3 years prior to your application and have migrant worker status.

Adult education bursaries include:

• A personal maintenance grant and certain additional allowances where applicable, which are means-tested;
  
  
• In most cases, approved travelling expenses above £80 a year, which is not means-tested;
  
  
• Tuition and other fees, including sessional or tuition fees, examination or validation fees and subscription to students union or similar body where membership is required. This does not cover resit examinations, caution money or deposits repayable to students, which are not means-tested.

The personal maintenance grant for full-time attendance of 30 weeks + 8 weeks short vacation at Christmas and Easter for 2004 - 5 is set at:

• Students living in college in the London area - £4,225.
  
  
• Students living in college elsewhere - £3,335.
  
  
• Students living in parental home - £2,520.

Where normal term-time attendance is more than 30 weeks, an additional grant may be paid for each additional week's attendance. The rates per week are:

• Students living in college in the London area - £88.00.
  
  
• Students living in college elsewhere - £67.00.
  
  
• Students living in parental home - £40.00.

Other allowances are also available for students on higher education courses including student loans, Higher Education Grant, Parents Learning Allowance, Child Tax Credit, Adult Dependants' Grant and Childcare Grant.

If you are or your parents are EU nationals, you may get support for your tuition fees if you have been resident in member states of the European Union during the 3 years before the academic year of the course and you satisfy the requirements (other than ordinary residence in the UK) that other students must satisfy for the grant.