If you've got money worries, we may be able to help.
Help with living costs
Are you in financial difficulty? We may be able to offer:
a short-term, interest-free emergency loan
an assessment to receive extra money
What do we mean by financial hardship?
If you find yourself struggling to make ends meet and you're unable to cover essential, day-to-day living costs.
Before you apply for assistance, you must have accessed all other sources of funding available to you. This includes using savings and taking out an interest free overdraft if you're eligible. The University funds are discretionary, and there is no guarantee that you'll receive funding. If you're eligible to receive help, you might receive either a non-repayable award or a loan.
Still not sure whether to make an application?
You may feel that there are more deserving cases than yours, and that you should not submit an application. However, the funds are intended to assist as many students as possible. Our assessment process will determine the level of assistance to offer to you. We aim to provide you with an outcome within 10 working days of submitting a fully completed application form.
The Financial Assistance Fund (FAF) is provided by the University to give discretionary financial assistance to registered international and non-UK EU students who are experiencing serious and unexpected financial difficulties due to circumstances beyond their control.
If you need help completing your application form, let us know and we can arrange a separate appointment to help you fill out your form.
Emergency loans
If you run out money and can't cover your living costs, we may be able to provide a short-term, interest free, emergency loan.
We'll usually only provide one emergency loan in any academic year, and we don't offer them during the summer vacation. They usually need to be repaid. They can't assist with ongoing or long-term financial difficulties, but we have other funding that might be able to help with this.
First, we'll speak to you over the phone. We'll ask you some questions to assess your eligibility for an emergency loan. Answer all of the questions to the best of your knowledge.
If you're eligible, we'll give you an appointment time. We'll ask you to bring itemised and continuous bank statements showing transactions in all of your accounts for the last month. This includes accounts you're no longer using or any overseas accounts (if applicable). We'll try and reach a decision at the end of the appointment, but in some instances. it could take up to 24 hours to reach a decision if you're asked to submit further evidence.
We'll only offer an emergency loan to cover very basic living costs in the short term.
We'll normally give you the loan in cash, but we may issue you with Tesco Spend Cards or a combination of the twoif we have concerns about your spending habits. You will not be able to use Tesco Spend Cards to buy alcohol or tobacco products.
We will agree a repayment date with you during your appointment. We'll take into account when you expect to receive your next source of income. You'll only repay what you borrow from us; your loan won't accrue interest.
You can repay online or in person at the Cash Office, Level 2, King's Gate. If you're unable to repay by the agreed date, you must contact us immediately to discuss the options available to you.
Need help with debts, benefits or consumer matters?
We don't provide advice about benefit eligibility, debt management or consumer matters. If you need help with any of these issues, contact the Student Advice Centre at the Students' Union, or an external organisation.
