Help! Going back to uni as a young single mum- what can I claim?

[iamelectrogirl]

Hi
So basically I'm planning on going back to university next September (DS will be 9 months). I'll be starting a completely different 3 year course at the university in my city, though I did a year elsewhere before leaving to have a baby.
Can anybody make sense of how my financial situation will be? I've done some research but I'm finding it hard to get a definite answer...and I really want to apply in October so need to be sure I can afford it!
Basically...

-I'll be living at home with my parents (their household income must be around £80,000 though I'm not sure it makes a difference to me)
-I don't have any savings
-I'll be 20 the month before I'd start the course
-It's a full time course
-DS will be 9 months old
-I'll need to use the university's nursery for any time I have lectures (nursery is about £33 a day but I can work all of this out later when I have a timetable for the course, I just need to have a rough idea overall)

Thanks for any help! Any links to anywhere I can calculate what I can claim would be great too

I think you need to start by looking at the Student Finance England site and see what you can find out from there.

It's on www.gov.uk

I was at university when DS was a little baby and I got all sorts of financial support, including money for books and 75% of childcare costs covered. That was seven years ago though now and you will be best discussing this with the relevant department at your university.

Good luck! It's exhausting but also very rewarding :-)

I tried Student Finance but their calculator kept just giving me the default 'you may be entitled to £3,500 if you live away from home'
I didn't think this would be so complicated!

You will probably need to commit to paying for a full-time nursery place (even if you don't use it). The deadline for telling the nursery what hours you actually need to use will probably be well before the point at which you know your timetable.

The university will have their own student finance people, who (in my experience) are usually brilliant. I'd get in touch with them.

There might also be a mature students group and/or a student parents group at the university. Contact the students' union to find out. (Technically you won't be a mature student, but the group I ran would have let you in! Finance-type rules are different for under/over 21s though, so bear that in mind if anyone tells you their personal experience.)

Good luck!

Just my experience here - a couple of things you might want to consider when doing sums taxcredits.hmrc.gov.uk/Qualify/DIQHousehold.aspx the tax credit calculator as I would assume you'll be entitled to the full amount (from birth so you'd need to fill it in as though you're already a mum to get a rough idea of how much a week). They helped me a lot as a student mum since if you're full time you aren't entitled to any other benefits (housing, council tax, unemployment etc...). If you are entitled to tax credit you should also get free prescriptions, which also helps. And don't forget to include child benefit that everyone gets regardless into your calculations. Your fees will be covered by the gov. discounted or not you won't need to pay anything back until you're earning more than a certain amount - although you prob already know that from before.

Are you doing an NHS type degree? (nursing, radiology, medicine, midwifery etc...) because they are free and you get paid to do them on a tax free stipend if I remember correctly. They have a separate helpline about finance if so.
With childcare if you are doing a standard BA type degree I would get in touch with the admin staff for that degree as they may not have the exact timetable but they will tell you how many hours a week contact time there is (seminars and lectures), and IME with humanities or arts type degrees we never had more than 10 hours of lectures/seminars a week.

Personal tip here: If you get into babywearing with and ergo or boba carrier it will be a hell of a lot easier getting around campus, it also contains a curious 1 year old easily while you pick up library books, catch campus buses etc... Uni's are rarely pram friendly when they're busy in term time, so many bloody doors and steps! This will save you money on childcare and transport too as parking is often expensive and exclusive and a lot of places offer heavily discounted/free student bus travel.

Income Support
Student Loan
Maintenance Grant
Check university for Bursaries/Hardship Grants as they often have these for Student Parents so that they can pay for nursery.

Exciting times for you!