Financial Assistance Fund Financial Assistance Fund
The Financial Assistance Fund is a University-funded scheme for students and PGRs who are facing genuine and unexpected financial difficulties and who have accessed all other sources of financial support. It is intended to help with essential living expenses so that you can continue studying with us at Leeds.
To apply to the Fund, you’ll need to meet the eligibility criteria and provide documentation to support your application. Read through these pages to make sure you understand what the Fund is and to check you have the supporting documentation you’ll need for making an application. If you have questions about the application process or your eligibility, please email the Student Funding team at funding@leeds.ac.uk
When you apply, an assessment will be undertaken to identify if there is a shortfall between your income and reasonable expenditure on living costs. The Student Funding team will never make any judgements when assessing applications, regardless of your financial situation and events that have led you here. The team only requests evidence to support your application, and documents will only be seen by those processing and assessing your application.
General conditions of the Financial Assistance Fund
- The Fund specifically helps with living costs and the assessment cannot include as expenditure tuition fees or examination fees.
- Its purpose is to cover unexpected financial difficulties only, and it cannot be a primary or main source of funding your studies.
- Assessments are completed in British pound sterling (GBP) and can only take into consideration costs incurred while living in the UK. The only exception to this is SFE, SFW, SFNI, or SAAS funded undergraduate students on a placement year or term abroad as part of their course. For these students, evidenced placement-related costs incurred while overseas, which cannot be reimbursed by their student loan provider (for example, via the Travel Grant) or are not covered by the Turing Scheme, can be included as costs within the assessment. Other than this, applications cannot be accepted from students who are abroad.
- You can apply on or after the start date of your academic year. If you receive statutory funding (e.g. student loan), the first instalment of this must have cleared in your bank account before you can apply to the Fund.
- All money that you can access, including money in savings accounts and money in a partner’s and joint accounts, will be included in the assessment as available income, even if you had originally planned to use this for a specific purpose (e.g. savings for when you’ve graduated). Where a fee would be incurred for early access to locked funds (e.g. Government ISAs), this will be taken into account when calculating the available funds.
- Money accessible in overdrafts is also included as available funding where this is an interest free overdraft facility (no interest or fees are applied for using the overdraft). UK full-time undergraduates are expected to have a student bank account which will have a free overdraft facility.
- The maximum total that can be awarded in any one academic year is £4,500.
- It is expected that you will only need to apply once in a year, as the assessment covers up to the end of your academic year.
- A shorter assessment period will be considered if you have an immediate and urgent financial need.