Students and benefits eBulletin - March 2024

In this issue

• Students and benefits online training courses
• Claiming benefits when a course ends
• Universal credit managed migration update
• Student funding update

Students and benefits online training courses

We are delivering online training courses via Zoom on benefits for students in April and June 2024.

Students and benefits - the basics on 30 April (half-day)

This is a basic-level course, most suitable for those with no prior benefits knowledge. It will cover a brief overview of social security benefits, and which students may be eligible for which benefits. Find out more about the course: Students and benefits - the basics

Students and benefits – an update on 13 June (half-day)

Make sure you know how recent benefit changes are likely to affect students. This experienced-level course is for advisers with a good working knowledge of the benefits and tax credits systems as they apply to students. It mainly updates advisers on changes, rather than on existing rules. Find out more about the course: Students and benefits – an update

In-house courses

We can also deliver online training via Zoom for you and your colleagues in-house for up to 15 staff members from your organisation/partner organisations. This includes the courses above, plus other students and benefits courses. We can also consider requests for in-person training on students and benefits, at your organisation or institution.

Claiming benefits when a course ends

When you finish a full-time course, you no longer count as a student for benefit purposes, and can therefore claim benefits in the same way as anyone else. The date you can claim from is usually the day after the last day of the final academic year of your course.

You must usually claim universal credit (UC) rather than legacy benefits (such as income support and housing benefit), but if you already get legacy benefits you can stay on them. Note however that you're likely to be told to claim UC at some point, as people on legacy benefits are being migrated to UC – see Universal credit managed migration update for more details.

Claim UC online at gov.uk/apply-universal-credit. An ‘assessment period’ of one month follows the date of claim, and payment is usually made a week after the assessment period ends. This means it is usually at least five weeks from claiming UC to being paid. If you are in hardship while waiting for your first UC payment, you can ask for a short-term advance. However, note that this is repayable from your UC award (over 24 months). Alternatively, you could try claiming a Scottish welfare fund crisis grant from your local authority.

Student income is not counted as income in the ‘assessment period’ in which your course ends. This means students eligible for UC (eg, student parents), whose UC stopped during term time because their income was too high, can reclaim in the last month of their course, when student income is ignored.

Note: student parents with a child/ren under 16, who are making a new claim for UC at the end of a course, should also apply for Scottish child payment from Social Security Scotland. See Scottish child payment for more information, and apply at mygov.scot/scottish-child-payment/how-to-apply

Now that you are no longer a full-time student you may be liable for council tax, but if you have a low income you should claim council tax reduction from the local authority to reduce your bill.

Note: if you live in ‘specified’ supported or temporary (eg, homeless) accommodation you must claim housing benefit for help with rent. You may need to claim this together with UC for your living costs (unless you already get a legacy benefit for your living costs, such as income support or income-related ESA).

Advisers can phone CPAG in Scotland's advice line for advisers and frontline staff on 0141 552 0552 to check what benefits a student can claim, or if you have any other questions about social security benefits. The advice line is available Monday to Thursday 10am – 4pm and Fridays 10am - 12 noon. You can also email your enquiries to [email protected]

Universal credit managed migration update

Managed migration to universal credit (UC) extended to some parts of Scotland in autumn 2023, and has now rolled out to all areas. Those only on child tax credit (CTC) and/or working tax credit (WTC) are first to move, and their migration to UC is expected to be complete in a few months' time. Then those on tax credits together with other legacy benefits will be migrated.

DWP have now announced more detail on the dates for those on other legacy benefits. From April 2024, those on income support, and those claiming tax credits with housing benefit (HB), will start to get managed migration notices. Then HB-only claimants from June, income-related ESA with CTC claimants from July, and income-based jobseeker’s allowance claimants in September 2024.

Finally, those on income-related ESA only or with HB are to be migrated – expected to start in 2028/29.

For more on managed migration to UC for students see the December 2023 Students and benefits eBulletin

Student funding update

Special support loan

From the academic year 2024/25, higher education student funding will increase by £2,400 a year, in the form of a special support loan. Crucially, this special support loan will not count as income when assessing universal credit (UC), and legacy benefits (such as income support, income-related ESA or housing benefit). This is because it is specifically for travel, childcare and study costs. This means that this extra student funding will not reduce a student’s means-tested benefits. Students entitled to UC will therefore be better off by £2,400 next year.

Read more about the new funding at the Student Awards Agency Scotland website.

New regulations specifically disregard this additional funding for legacy benefits. The Social Security and Universal Credit (Migration of Tax Credit Claimants and Miscellaneous Amendments) Regulations 2024 SI No. 341 disregard the special support loan in Scotland for income support, income-based jobseeker’s allowance, income-related ESA and housing benefit at regulations 2, 3, 4 and 5. UC works differently: although the special support loan is not specifically disregarded for UC in the regulations, it will nonetheless be disregarded under provisions already in the UC regulations 2013 reg 68(3), or reg 70.

Young students’ bursary

These new regulations also introduce a disregard of the young students’ bursary for UC from 1 April 2024 (reg 7(4)). This means it is treated in the same way as the independent students’ bursary and the estranged students’ bursary, and does not affect UC. Note that these bursaries do all still count as income for legacy benefits.

Student loan paid over 12 months

From the academic year 2024/25, higher education students can choose to have their student loan paid over 12 months – ie, including over the summer vacation between years of a course. See the Student Awards Agency Scotland website for more information.

For those students who are eligible for UC, such as student parents, UC is calculated in the same way regardless of whether the loan is paid over 9 or 12 months. This is because the UC regulations only take student income into account over the academic year. As a general point, taking the loan over 12 months means significantly less income during the academic year and significantly more over the summer. Taking the loan over 9 months means a more even spread of income over the 12-month period.

For example, using the example of Susan above, a student lone parent with one child and rent to pay might have UC of £475.71 a month during the academic year. Over the summer, assuming she doesn’t have other income such as earnings, she would get maximum UC of £1,399.60. The UC amounts will be the same whether the loan is paid over 9 or 12 months. The table below illustrates total monthly income in each of the two scenarios (amounts are rounded to whole £s for simplicity).