Are scholarships a loan?

[justthisonetime456]

My daughter has received an email from Student Finance company saying her university have given her a £1000 scholarship for this year. She’s looked into it and thinks that’s it’s because I earn less than 35k. There’s no information as to whether this is added to her loan and she has to pay it back like the maintenance loan. Does anyone know?

My dd had a scholarship like this, it was entirely separate from the student loan.

So she doesn’t have to pay it back? She’s worried about how big her loan will be on graduating already and would rather try and get a part time job than more loan.

No, scholarships are non-repayable payments from the university. Scholarships are usually awarded on academic grounds (e.g. having particular A-level grades) but may only be available to students who meet certain eligibility criteria (e.g. household income). Payments made purely on the basis of financial status are usually referred to as bursaries rather than scholarships, but this might vary among universities.

Thank you everyone. I will reassure her. My daughter got very high grades and the letter said scholarship but then said bursary lower down. It was strange that it came from the university via the student loans company, that’s why she was worried it would be added onto her loan.

Some universities find it more convenient to pay bursaries & scholarships to students via the SLC, rather than having to set up payments themselves. The SLC only administers the payments: the money comes from the university.