Single parent, benefits, student finance?!

[BStarley]

Current situation is I am a single parent. My ex husband left when daughter was a few months old. Now divorced. I left work to care for daughter when pregnant as ex husband had a very good salary.

Now looking to return to study to secure a good future for me and my daughter. I receive child support and benefits including income support.

Does anyone who has gone back to study (or looked into it) know what effect (if any) benefits have on the amount paid in tuition fees?

Is there any extra support I can get?

Any advice from anyone who has been there would be greatly appreciated!

B x

Benefits will mean you get full tuition fees and all loans and any bursary the uni offer. However when claiming all of the above you will no longer be eligible for income support but will still get tax credits and child benefit.

I went when my DD was a baby she is 13 now but I think things are still the same.

How old is your daughter ? Once she turns 5 you will need to claim Universal credit and this is affected by student loans.

Hi OP,

I ended up in this situation, I was already studying and suddenly needed to claim Universal credit.

As a single parent my total finance was around £12000. The DWP only consider up to £6600 (roughly) as income.

They divide this by the number of months your studying in any one year. (My degree was sept to may so 9 months). So they would deduct around £733 from an income from those figures.

Hope this helps!