Disabled Student Allowance and Student Finance England (SFE) 2016-17

Disabled Student Allowance and Student Finance England (SFE) 2016-17

by Deleted user -
Number of replies: 0

To:  all students, re Disabled Student Allowance and Student Finance England (SFE) 2016-17

1. After some queries this is just to confirm that if you have Disabled Student Allowance (DSA), although rules about what will be funded in 2016-17 are changing, these changes are for new students only.  If you have funding in place currently then what you have been assessed as being entitled to receive will continue for the remainder of your academic award in 2016-17 and beyond*.  As a college at the moment we are planning how to manage the changes to funding entitlement for new students for 2016-17.  If you know or think you may be entitled to DSA and do not have funding in place currently we would strongly advise you to investigate and apply as soon as possible this year before these changes take place.  See:  https://www.gov.uk/disabled-students-allowances-dsas/overview for eligibility and how to apply and on Moodle: go to Academic and Foundation Policies / Foundation Policies and see the section on this topic. 

2. We are currently in the middle of having our designated (government approved) courses for 2016-17 listed on the student finance (SfE) website.  Like last year once they are on we will contact directly those students who appear on our College’s SFE  list as receiving some kind of student finance(such as DSA) to let you know what the relevant course code is for your reapplication for next year’s funding.  If you have never done an annual reapplication see this website- the section on Continuing Students: https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-student-finance  we hope we will be listed in the next week or so.

*The only possible exceptions could be if you are completing for instance a BA this year and moving to a post graduate award such as an MA next year (i.e. starting a new university award instead of moving onto the next stage of an existing award).  Be aware that support for the most serious diagnosis including 1:1 specialist support is not being removed, we aren’t aware of any non-medical helper assistance currently being offered to our students that falls into a category that may be subject to the changes next year.   

Note that DSA is the only student finance available at post graduate level.