Student Hardship Fund
Our Student Hardship Fund and Emergency Loans provide financial assistance to help our students through periods of financial difficulty and unexpected hardship.
We know that sometimes things can be difficult financially, and at Roehampton we are committed to providing avenues to help our students in times of need.
As a Roehampton student, you will be able to apply once per academic year, and funding includes Emergency loans (repayable) and Student Hardship Fund (non-repayable loans).
Please note these are not scholarships or bursaries, for more information about these click here.
The Hardship Fund is a limited fund at the University of Roehampton and there is no guarantee an award will be made. This is a discretionary award and as such the University can amend the approach as needed. If a student is awarded, the fund can provide a contribution towards an unexpected financial crisis.
There are some points to consider if you are thinking about accessing the fund:
- Please note that all applicants are expected to apply for and accept all loans, grants, and bursaries to which they are entitled before asking for help from the Fund.
- Postgraduate students can apply for the funds; however, they must provide evidence that they have made adequate provisions towards their course costs and living expenses as part of their application.
- The funds cannot be used to assist towards the payment of tuition fees and all students making an application to the fund are expected to be up to date with their tuition fee payments. Any student that applies and is debtor of the university, won’t be considered for the fund until these payments are made or at minimum brought up to date with their instalment plan chosen upon their enrolment.
If you want to know about scholarships and bursaries please click here.
If you are a current Roehampton student and have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in touch with us via NEST.
If you are a prospective student, we run regular open days and webinars where you can find out more about the support for students we offer. Details of our open events are here.
Students that apply must:
- Be a fully registered student at Roehampton University
- Be attending any full-time undergraduate, PGCE or postgraduate course.
- Home/UK Students must have applied for, and be in receipt of, the maximum amount of maintenance loan they are entitled to. Exceptions may be made if evidence of provision can also be provided.
- Students that are of the following programme status are not eligible to apply or receive any funding from the student hardship fund:
- Programme Suspended
- Interrupting studies
- Finalist/Completing Assessments
Students can only apply for the Hardship Fund once throughout the academic year.
Standard assessments focus on expected income compared with essential expenditure during the academic year. These figures are obtained from the students application form, and the expenditure is set by NASMA (National Association of Student Money Advisors). If there is a significant shortfall between the income and expenditure, and the applicant is deemed eligible, it is likely that an award will be made as long as students can demonstrate that every effort has been made to manage the money, they do have access to.
Where a standard award is not appropriate a non-standard award may be given to provide additional support in exceptional circumstances, for example to cover an unexpected cost. Each application of this nature will be assessed on an individual basis, with maximum awards not normally exceeding £200.
The emergency loan scheme is designed to assist students who find themselves with a temporary cash flow problem caused by a delay in receiving their student loans or an unexpected financial crisis that could not have been avoided.
Students will be expected to repay a loan once in receipt of their funding from Student Finance. Failure to repay the loan will mean that if a student seeks assistance from the Hardship fund in the future, their application may not be considered.
The standard loan amount varies depending on the circumstances and the timeframe of the delay of a student’s maintenance loan.