Funding and Financial Support

When you claim fee remis­sion as method of pay­ment for your course you need to make sure you are ful­ly enti­tled to this. It is imper­a­tive you present all of your qual­i­fi­ca­tions at the time of enrol­ment so that your enti­tle­ment is ver­i­fied by the College. 

The Col­lege MIS Team will re-assess your sit­u­a­tion to deter­mine whether you are ful­ly enti­tled or not.

If your claim has been reject­ed in error, the Col­lege will help cor­rect this. If evi­dence con­firms you should not have claimed fee remis­sion, then respon­si­bil­i­ty for course fees falls on you per­son­al­ly to repay what is owed.

You may be enti­tled to an Advanced Learn­er Loan if your course is at Lev­el 3 or above instead of pay­ing for the course your­self. Please dis­cuss with the Infor­ma­tion Team to see whether you can apply. They can help you with the appli­ca­tion form if you wish.

You will need to pay the full amount for the entire course imme­di­ate­ly whether you decide to with­draw or con­tin­ue, as per the terms of your Learn­er Agree­ment. Alter­na­tive­ly you can arrange a Flex Pay Plan to pay by instal­ments. Refer to the ​“Self Fund­ing” infor­ma­tion below.

If you will be self-fund­ing your tuition fees there are some key terms and con­di­tions which you need to know and are detailed in our fee’s pol­i­cy found here.

For cours­es over £350, we can offer instal­ments using Flex Pay, you will nor­mal­ly have to pay 1⁄3 of your total fees pri­or to the com­mence­ment of your course. Flex Pay will then con­tact you to agree on a pay­ment plan. You will be required to sign a Flex­pay agree­ment, how­ev­er, the pay­ment plan will be man­aged by Flex­Pay direct­ly whose details can be found here: https://​flex​pay​.uk​.com/

You will need to pay the full amount for the entire course before you com­mence your peri­od of study.

Should you have con­cerns with meet­ing your Flex Pay agreed pay­ment sched­ule, please con­tact them direct­ly at first to discuss.

If, after the call-off peri­od as per the fee pol­i­cy, at any time you with­draw from your course, you will still be liable for pay­ment in full for the com­plete course. If you with­draw dur­ing the call-off peri­od, you will incur a small admin charge as detailed in the fee pol­i­cy to cov­er admin­is­tra­tion costs. 

If you have select­ed to pay by Flex Pay, any out­stand­ing bal­ance will imme­di­ate­ly become due. Only in excep­tion­al cir­cum­stances will the Col­lege con­sid­er a refund, in line with its Refund Pol­i­cy. A form for Refund Appli­ca­tions is avail­able on request.

If you with­draw in the first term of your course, you can apply to trans­fer any fees paid or payable to anoth­er course offered by the Col­lege in the same aca­d­e­m­ic year. Alter­na­tive­ly, vouch­ers can be issued to be used on any Stam­ford Col­lege course in the fol­low­ing aca­d­e­m­ic year. The val­ue will be pro rata to the num­ber of full terms remain­ing on the course at point of withdrawal.

Yes, you can, but you will have to sign up for a Direct Deb­it that acts as a guar­an­tee that you will pay for the course your­self if your loan is not approved. 

Yes, help and assis­tance is avail­able in the Infor­ma­tion, Advice and Guid­ance team.

If you have not received approval by the last week of Octo­ber, please dis­cuss this with the Infor­ma­tion Team so we can help resolve any out­stand­ing issues with your appli­ca­tion in good time. You will not be allowed to attend your course if your loan is still not approved and you have not start­ed to pay your fees.

Depend­ing on the date of your with­draw­al, Stu­dent Finance Eng­land may not pay your full tuition fee lia­bil­i­ty, so a por­tion of your fee may be invoiced direct­ly to you by the Col­lege. It’s impor­tant to remem­ber that any monies paid over to the col­lege by Stu­dent Finance Eng­land will still form part of your loan to be repaid in future years.

You will have no fee lia­bil­i­ty and can can­cel any stu­dent loans you have applied for.

Your fee lia­bil­i­ty will depend on when you with­draw. You will have a two-week cool­ing-off peri­od from the date that your course starts until you become liable for the annu­al course fee. The fol­low­ing will apply accord­ing to the fund­ing method cho­sen after this period:

If you with­draw with­in the cool­ing off peri­od, a small admin charge to be made accord­ing to the fee pol­i­cy found here.

We will need to have evi­dence that they will agree to the charges which will need to be pro­vid­ed dur­ing your enrolment.

This must be a let­ter on com­pa­ny head­ed paper and addressed to the Col­lege with your name, and your employ­ers agree­ment to be liable for the course fees for each aca­d­e­m­ic year, along with rel­e­vant pur­chase orders if required. This must be signed by an autho­rised mem­ber of the company.

This letter/​purchase order must be brought with you in order to enrol on your cho­sen course.

You need to ensure your Com­pa­ny let­ter makes it clear where lia­bil­i­ty lies in the event you leave their employment. 

If your Employ­er has con­sent­ed to cov­er all costs in the event of your leav­ing, then you may con­tin­ue your course at no cost to your­self. If how­ev­er your Employ­er has arranged with your­self that no fur­ther fees will be cov­ered, then you will become per­son­al­ly liable for the bal­ance whether you con­tin­ue on the course or not. See the ​“Self-Fund­ing” guid­ance above for more information.

16 – 19 Vul­ner­a­ble Stu­dent Bursary

If you fall into one of the fol­low­ing groups you may be eli­gi­ble to apply for the 16 – 18 Vul­ner­a­ble Bursary:

• Young Peo­ple in Care
• Care Leavers
• Receiv­ing Income sup­port or Uni­ver­sal Cred­it in your own right because you are finan­cial­ly sup­port­ing your­self or/​and some­one who is depen­dent on you
• Receiv­ing Dis­abil­i­ty Liv­ing Allowance or Per­son­al Inde­pen­dent Pay­ment in your own right and Employ­ment Sup­port Allowance or Uni­ver­sal Cred­it in your own right

If you fall into one or more of these groups above you can apply for a Vul­ner­a­ble Bur­sary of up to £1,200 per aca­d­e­m­ic year. You will receive a week­ly pay­ment which is atten­dance based. You may also be eli­gi­ble for help with trans­port to and from col­lege, uni­form and equip­ment and any manda­to­ry trips.

If you are under the age of 19 at the start of your course and have a house­hold income of less than £16,190 you may be eli­gi­ble for sup­port with the following:

• Free Col­lege Meals
• Trans­port
• Uni­form
• Equip­ment
• Manda­to­ry Trips

If your income is between £16,190 and £27,000 you may be eli­gi­ble for the following:

• Col­lege Bus at a reduced cost
• Uni­form
• Equip­ment
• Manda­to­ry Trips

If you are 19 or over at the start of your course and have a house­hold income of less than £16,190 you may be eli­gi­ble for sup­port with the following:

• Trans­port
• Uni­form
• Equip­ment
• Manda­to­ry Trips
• Child­care *see below for more information

If your income is between £16,190 and £27,000 you may be eli­gi­ble for the following:

• Col­lege Bus at a reduced cost
• Uni­form
• Equip­ment
• Manda­to­ry Trips
• Child­care * see below for more information

If you are under the age of 19 at the start of your course and have a house­hold income of less than £16,190 you may be enti­tled to free col­lege meals. One of the fol­low­ing forms of evi­dence will need to be provided:

• Income Sup­port

• Income-based Job Seek­ers Allowance

• Income-relat­ed Employ­ment and Sup­port Allowance

• Sup­port under part VI of the Immi­gra­tion and Asy­lum Act 1999

• The guar­an­tee ele­ment of State Pen­sion Credit

• Child Tax Cred­its (But not work­ing Tax Cred­its) with a gross annu­al income of no more than £16,190 as assessed by HMRC

• Uni­ver­sal Cred­it hav­ing pro­vid­ed 3 con­sec­u­tive state­ments with net earn­ings not exceed­ing the equiv­a­lent of £7,400 pa (£616.67 per month)
• Work­ing tax run-on-paid for 4 weeks after you stop qual­i­fy­ing for work­ing tax credit

• In receipt of free meals at school or col­lege (evi­dence required)

Stu­dents aged 19 – 24 are only eli­gi­ble to receive a free meal if they meet the eli­gi­bil­i­ty cri­te­ria above and have an Edu­ca­tion, Health and Care Plan (EHCP)

16 – 19 Child­care Costs

If you are aged 16 to 19 at the start of your course you can apply to Care to Learn for help with your child­care costs. Stu­dents apply direct using the fol­low­ing web­site www​.gov​.uk/​c​a​r​e​-​t​o​-​learn.

20+ Child­care

If you are aged 20 or over and are plan­ning to use an OFST­ED reg­is­tered Child­care provider (Nurs­ery, Child Min­der, Pre/​After School club) whilst you are at col­lege and if your house­hold income is £27,000 or below you would qual­i­fy for help towards your child­care costs. Child­care is not paid dur­ing col­lege hol­i­day peri­ods; this is only paid dur­ing term-time and dur­ing the hours the stu­dent is at col­lege. If you are in receipt of any ear­ly years fund­ing, these hours must be used before any con­tri­bu­tions for child­care are made by the college.

Yes.

• Stu­dents on appren­tice­ship pro­grammes, or any waged train­ing, because those stu­dents are clas­si­fied as employed.

There is no dead­line date to apply, but the soon­er you apply the bet­ter. Appli­ca­tions can be sub­mit­ted at any time dur­ing the aca­d­e­m­ic year. Stu­dents may also make more than one appli­ca­tion if their sit­u­a­tion changes. 

Yes. A new appli­ca­tion needs to be sub­mit­ted to the Learn­er Sup­port Fund for each aca­d­e­m­ic year that you study at the col­lege. This is because sit­u­a­tions and ben­e­fit amounts are like­ly to change year on year.

No. Receiv­ing assis­tance from the Learn­er Sup­port Fund will not affect the amount or enti­tle­ment to any Depart­ment of Work and Pen­sions (DWP) ben­e­fits you receive. The bur­sary fund is in place to sup­port the costs of edu­ca­tion and remove finan­cial bar­ri­ers so that all stu­dents have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to study the course of their choosing.