To just give up education due to lack of finance

[Stressedthequackout]

Good afternoon all - asking on behalf of a friend.
We are studying an access course and due to start university in September 2021. Friend is 20 years old and without children(I am quite a bit older with children).
She lives with her boyfriend but is not on the tendency agreement - he pays the rent and works full time and before college started she worked part time and would give him cash towards the rent and bills. She was also entitled to £342 universal credit for a single person. However she is no longer entitled to UC as she is a student and now only works one day due to studying - all of her money pays for her bills like food, electric, phone bills etc. She actually cannot afford to pay for travel into college anymore because of this - it is costing her £80 a month to get the train. She does receive college bursary but it’s a very small amount and doesn’t cover the travel. Her partner cannot fund it either as he is working full time and paying all of their rent.
If anybody knows any extra funding she is entitled to please comment on here. Thank you x

Colleges usually have a hardship fund.

Sorry just to add on - she took out an advance with uc a while ago and as she has stopped claiming it she isn’t paying it back anymore through her payments so they have sent her a settlement letter for £300 odd. Where does she stand on this?

Is the access course having classes in person? Is there an option to take them online due to covid?

If she can scrape along somehow to the end of the access course, surely she will get a student maintenance loan for the university course in September?

How many hours a week is the course? She needs to up her working hours. 1 day/week is very little.

Without knowing how much she's earning from the part time job and the small bursary, as well as her commitments like the phone bill, it's hard to say if it's realistic or not for her to make it to the end of the course. I appreciate some people simply cannot stretch the money. But if her bf is paying the rent it sounds like there's a chance she could manage.

Go on Gov.uk. You can apply for Government Study Loans that don't have to be paid back until you are earning at least £25K a year. Some places also offer financial bursaries for strugling students.

@Stressedthequackout with the advanced payment she'll have to pay it back. I had one a while ago after being made redundant and forgot about it and they put an attachment of earnings on my wages and there was nothing I could do about it. She'd be better off getting in touch with them and making a payment plan rather than letting them decide what to take because they don't know her outgoings.