Levitate Student: SFE & DWP, left hand doesn't know what right hand's doing....

In academic year 2016/17 Maintenance Grants to help with living costs were removed from the package of funding support available to new full-time HE students in England.

There were two distinct versions of the grant for living costs which were assessed in the same way and were paid at the same level, these were 

the Maintenance Grant 
the Special Support Grant

In 2015/16 a students household income had to be £42,620 to be eligible for a payment of the minimum grant of £50 with the maximum grant of £3,387 being paid to students where the household income was assessed as £25,000 or below.

So why two grants for maintenance.......?

The Maintenance Grant would count as income in the calculation of any means-tested Welfare Benefits. As the vast majority of full-time undergraduates are not eligible for Welfare Benefits whilst they study this was not really an issue.

Special Support Grant would not count as income against means-tested Welfare Benefits. So it was paid instead of Maintenance Grant to those students (such as lone parents, student couples with children, disabled students) who could evidence an underlying entitlement to certain means-tested Welfare Benefits.  

The student Maintenance Loan does count as income (albeit with some disregards) against means-tested Welfare Benefits.

In 2016/17 the Maintenance Grant and Special Support Grant were removed from the funding package and replaced by Maintenance Loan only. For those new students with an underlying or actual entitlement to means-tested Welfare Benefits their award comprised a Loan for living costs with a Maintenance element and a Special Support element. 

For students from the lowest income households this meant a maximum Maintenance Loan of £8,935 with a Maintenance element of  £5,466 and a Special Support element of £3,469.

The idea being that the Special Support element would be disregarded as income by the Department for Work and Pensions and other benefit agencies when calculating means-tested Welfare Benefits. 


This all makes sense except when it comes to practice......

Some students it seems, such as lone parents and disabled students, are facing problems when applying to local authorities and other benefit agencies for means-tested benefits such as Housing Benefit to which they are entitled.

These agencies do not seem to have been updated adequately about the student income changes or with guidance on how to apply the disregarded Special Support element of the Maintenance Loan.

In addition Student Finance England Student Support Notification Letters do not break down the Maintenance Loan into individual elements, making it tricky for the benefit agencies to establish how much of the Maintenance Loan award is the Special Support element.  

It seems unacceptable that the most vulnerable students, who rely on Welfare Benefits to cover their basic living costs should be impacted so adversely. These challenges do nothing to help student retention problems or to widen participation from under represented groups. No doubt university advisers and hardship funds have felt the pressure to support their students through this academic year when they have been left with reduced income and rent shortfalls due to these problems.

Why was communication about the impact of these changes so poor? Why is it taking so long to remedy?