UK and EU student tuition fees and maintenance loans - eligibility and amounts

If you're a UK or EU student and your course includes a placement year - studying abroad or working, either abroad or in the UK - your funding will change for the year.

If you're an international student and your course at Leeds includes a placement year, check your tuition fees with the Fees team. Email the Fees team at: UGfees@leeds.ac.uk

Remember, you still need to register with the University of Leeds as normal, even if you're away on placement.

Entitlement – UK Students

You're entitled to receive both your Tuition Fee Loan and your Maintenance Loan during the year you spend on placement.

Apply for your student loan through your national student finance organisation:

Student Finance England (SFE)
Student Finance Wales (SFW)
Student Finance Northern Ireland (SFNI)
Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS)

See our information on applying for your student loan for guidance on how to complete the loan application when on a placement year.

Entitlement – EU Students

If you started your course in the 2020/21 academic year or earlier, you're entitled to receive your Tuition Fee Loan for the year you spend on placement. Apply for your student loan from Student Finance England (SFE). If you have transferred onto a new course to include your placement year (i.e. completed a Change of Programme form with your school), you will need to complete a Student Finance England notificaiton of change of circumstances EUCO1 form . You should return the form to Student Finance England along with any other paperwork that SFE send you for completion. EU students who started their course in the 2021/22 academic year or later are not eligible for the SFE tuition fee loan.

Tuition fees

All UK students on a year study abroad, work placement, or British Council language assistantship (BCLA) will pay a reduced tuition fee. You can find more information on our undergraduate fees page.

If you're only going on placement for one term, your tuition fee will be the same as if you completed the full year at Leeds.

There's no tuition fee to pay to the host university, although there may be some other fees and charges (e.g. insurance, student union membership, sports membership, travel passes). Some of these will be optional, some mandatory. The Study Abroad Office website has further information about fees and charges.

Maintenance loan

The amount of maintenance you're eligible for depends on your individual situation, i.e. where you'll be living and what you're doing, including if you're:

studying abroad or on a work placement in the UK or abroad;
on a work placement under the Turing Scheme;
on a 'special case' work placement - see below.

SFE students:

Levels of maintenance loan funding by student circumstance are published on the Student Finance England undergraduate maintenance loan amounts page.

This links to the SFE published funding levels for 2017/18. Funding information was last updated by SFE in April 2017, and SFE have not published funding levels for the years since then. The 2017/18 figures can be taken as a guide to funding levels for following years.

There's two categories of maintenance loan for students on a placement year - Full Funding and Reduced Funding. Students eligible for full funding can choose to be income assessed or non-income assessed. Students eligible for reduced funding receive a significantly lower level of funding and cannot be income assessed (i.e. the funding does not take account of household income).

Students on study abroad, a Turing Scheme work placement (paid or unpaid), or special case work placement are eligible for Full Funding.
Students on a work placement that's not under the Turing Scheme or isn't a special case are only eligible for Reduced Funding. This is regardless of whether the placement is paid or not. These students should be aware that their funding for the placement year will be significantly less than they would expect to receive in a study year.

Students on study abroad, a Turing Scheme work placement, or special case work placement, should refer to the Student Finance England undergraduate maintenance loan amounts page. Students who chose not to have their household income considered (if they don't provide household income information) or Students who chose to have their household income considered (if they do provide household income information). These are the tables for Full Funding.

Students on a work placement that is not under the Turing Scheme or not a special case should refer to the Student Finance England undergraduate maintenance loan amounts page. Sandwich years. This is the table for Reduced Funding.

For more information see the following fact sheet download pages:

SFW, SFNI, and SAAS students should check with their loan provider about maintenance loans.

Receiving Your Loan – Early Starters and Loan Instalments

You may be able to receive your loan early, and students going on study abroad to certain countries will be paid in one or two instalments instead of three. See applying for your student loan for details.

Further informtion detailing

Leeds Bursary and University Scholarships

Students on a study abroad or work placement year will not receive the Leeds Bursary during the year they are away.

If you receive an Educational Engagement scholarships, you'll need to contact the Plus Programme team to ask if you can continue to receive this when on a placement year. Email the Plus Programme team at: theplusprogramme@leeds.ac.uk

Turing Scheme

Find out more about the Turing Scheme.

You should not depend on the grant to cover all living costs when budgeting.

'Special Case' Work Placement Definitions

If you're on an unpaid placement you may be eligible for means-tested funding if the placement is one of the following:

a) unpaid service in a hospital or in a public health service laboratory or with a clinical commissioning group in the UK;
b) unpaid service with a local authority in the UK acting in the exercise of its functions relating to the care of children and young persons, health or welfare or with a voluntary organisation providing facilities or carrying out activities of a like nature in the UK; ba) unpaid service with a local authority (within the meaning of section 2B of the NHS Act 2006) acting in the exercise of public health functions (within the meaning of that Act)*;
c) unpaid service in the prison or probation or aftercare service in the UK;
d) unpaid research in an institution in the UK or, in the case of a student attending an overseas institution as part of the student's course, in an overseas institution**;
e) unpaid service with i) a Special Health Authority established pursuant to section 28 of the NHS Act 2006; (ia) the NHS Commissioning Board; (ib) the NIHCE; (ic)the Health and Social Care Information Centre; (ii) a Local Health Board established pursuant to section 11 of the NHS (Wales) Act 2006(b) or a Special Health Authority established pursuant to section 22 of that Act; (iii) a Health Board or a Special Health Board constituted under section 2 of the NHS (Scotland) Act 1978(c); or (iv) a Health and Social Services Board established under Article 16 of the Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Order 1972(d); or
f) unpaid service with either House of Parliament.

* The placement can be with a council or a voluntary organisation in the UK. If with a voluntary organisation, the work must be of a 'like nature' to the work that a council would undertake in exercise of its functions. The student must be working directly with 'service users' (i.e. in the provision of care/welfare, not in an administrative, funding raising, etc. role).

** 'Institution' in the Student Support Regulations is defined as an educational institution offering designated higher education courses of at least one year in length, or overseas equivalents.

If your employer is paying you expenses (e.g. for travel) or if you're receiving a bursary (e.g. from the NHS) or other subsidy that is not liable for tax, your placement will be classed as unpaid by SFE.

If you're being paid a salary or any income is tax liable, your placement will be classed as paid by SFE regardless of the amount you receive.

If you're on a work placement which is classed as a 'special case' you'll need to indicate the category of placement (a, b, c, d, e, or f) on your student loan application form. The University will also need to confirm your placement details with your loan provider. Once you have applied for your loan, you should email Placement Funding at placement-funding@leeds.ac.uk with the following information:

your name
your student ID number;
the name and address of your placement;
charity number (if applicable);
job title and brief description of duties;
a note of the category (a, b, c, d, e, f);
your placement dates (approx. start and end dates if actual dates not confirmed, and dates of breaks for annual leave if known).

We'll then write to your loan provider to request that you are assessed for full funding.

Extra Weeks Funding - Student Finance England, Student Finance Wales, and Student Finance Northern Ireland students

If your placement is longer than 30 weeks and 3 days you may be entitled to extra Maintenance Loan payments for each additional week of attendance. However, you'll only be eligible if you've applied for a means-tested loan. This will be students on study abroad, a Turing work placement, or special case work placement.

For students who are on study abroad or a Turing work placement, the University of Leeds will update your loan provider with the term dates of your host institution so that you can be assessed for extra weeks funding.

For students who are on a special case work placement in the UK, the dates of your placement, taking account of any breaks for annual leave, should be included in the information sent by the University to your loan provider confirming that your placement is a special case. See Special Case Work Placement definitions above for more information.

Extra weeks funding is means-tested and if you are entitled it will be added to your overall maintenance loan. SFE will assess students for extra weeks funding only if the University is able to provide accurate dates for the periods of study or work, taking account of public and national holidays (i.e. Christmas/New Year and Easter) when you would not be expected to be in attendance/working. They will expect to see three terms or periods of work with breaks in December/January and March/April. For students on study abroad in Japan and China, they will expect to see two periods of study, corresponding to the semester dates of the host institution, with a break in February/March (i.e. at the academic year end).

Student Finance England students can find further information on the Student Finance England website.

SFW and SFNI students should contact their loan providers for more information.

SAAS do not have extra weeks funding for long courses.

Travel Grant

Please see the Student Loans Company guidance on full-time travel grants for students studying abroad or on a work placement

Real Students, Real Stories

Amy Draper

Universidad Católica Argentina, Buenos Aires

While my family and friends in England were sending me the usual list of January complaints I was enjoying being far from the winter blues and late night revision. I was travelling overland through northern Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Chile. A six-week journey of 23 long distance buses, four international borders, too many hostels to mention and one episode of food poisoning.