University and Universal Credit

[CottonEffinCandy]

Hi all,

I'm studying PT with a university and am a single parent. I'm currently unemployed and receiving universal credit.
I was informed at the start of the year that because I receive an educational grant every year, my universal credit payments would drop from £1000 a month (which included £500 towards my rent from housing benefit) to £770. My grant gets paid every 3 months and is barely enough to cover my uni expenses. I've never struggled as bad as I have for the last 6 months.

Now that the uni year is over - I should be getting my normal amount again, right?
The £230 that's being deducted from my universal credit should stop now? Universal Credit know what my uni dates are but I can't find any of this information online anywhere and I don't know what to do or how to stop these deductions.

Your uni loan/grant is to cover you for 12 full months I'm afraid - so you shouldn't expect a top up UC over the summer. Sorry.

Its not for the 12 months @titchy The grant should be attributed for the assessment periods in which the academic year covers.

@CottonEffinCandy the case controls for these are set by the case manager and only if the user does it. Drop a note on the journal asking them to look at it.

As above you need to leave a note on your journal. The maintenance grant should be divided between the months it is intended to cover. Remember that Uc is paid in arrears though.

Undergraduate loans are for 12 months though - hence why the final year one is less. Does UC really count them differently? Hope so for OP's sake in that case!

Yes, it only covers the months you're studying so sept-may for example as far as I understand it

Oh no I hope its not for the full 12 months!!!

Thank you all so much for your helpful replies.

I'm reluctant to send them a message on my journal because the last time I spoke to someone on there they were asking for grant/loan information from the last 2 years (because even though I gave them the correct information every year and they decided it was fine - now all of a sudden I owe them thousands apparently because it should have been deducted from my universal credit but they "forgot" because of covid) and it honestly got too much and I never replied.

I've decided to take a year break from university so I won't be enrolling back in September- I don't know if that's something I need to declare?