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If there is a question that you have been puzzling over why not suggest a faq. This page last updated 29 October 2008.
Q1. Will a student loan affect my disability living allowance (DLA) and incapacity benefit (IB)?
Q3. Is it possible to get housing benefit (HB) to help pay for student halls?
Q4. What is the Sale of Student Loans Act?
Q5. What is employment and support allowance?
Q7. Can I claim employment and support allowance?
A1. Your IB is not affected by any student grant or loan you receive but if you are under 19 your entitlement to IB may be affected by the type and hours of tuition you receive. If you are under 19 you can get IB as long as you attend classes or periods of supervised study adding up to less than 21 hours a week. Lunch breaks, breaks between lessons, free periods, and periods of private (unsupervised) study or homework do not count. If you attend classes for 21 hours or more each week, you may still qualify for IB if the extra hours of classes would not be ‘suitable for persons of the same age and sex who do not suffer from a physical or mental disability’.
When adding up the hours of instruction, ignore the time spent on any course that would not routinely be followed by a non-disabled person of the same age or sex.
This rule does not apply if you are age 19 or over.
To be entitled to IB you must also be accepted as incapable of work, assessed under the ‘personal capability assessment’ (unless you are in an exempt group). This test is concerned with how you carry out a range of activities in your daily life, including the time you are attending your course. When beginning study you must declare this as a change of circumstances. This may trigger a review of your benefit, but does not necessarily mean you will lose it.
Your DLA is not affected by your student loan. If your college provides care and assistance for you, the college authorities may claim some or all of your DLA care component from you towards their costs. If you are living in a residential college, your care component will stop for the time you are there, if it counts as ‘special accommodation’.
A2. If you are a first year student your maximum loan if you study outside of London should be £4,950. This loan will affect the amount of IS you receive as most, but not all of it, will be treated as income. The benefit rules allow you a certain amount for travel costs, books and equipment (for the 2009/2010 year these amounts are £303 a year for travel costs and £390 a year for books and equipment). Once this amount has been deducted the remaining loan is divided over 42 or 43 weeks, depending on the total number of term weeks. Of this weekly figure £10.00 a week is disregarded and the rest counts as income and reduces your IS on a pound for pound basis.
The SDA you receive will not be affected by your loan. However the fact that your IS includes SDA may affect your IS entitlement. You may lose this IS entitlement when you get your loan if the amount of IS you receive to top up your SDA is less than your weekly loan.
A3. If you are a full-time student you can get HB to help pay for student halls providing you are entitled to receive HB for other types of accommodation. You will fall into this category if you are a disabled student who is incapable of work, are in receipt of income support, a lone parent or receiving disabled students’ allowance because of deafness.
If you are a part-time student, but would be eligible for HB as a full time student and are renting accommodation from your educational establishment you may also get HB (note that there are special rules where you are on income support or Jobseeker’s Allowance).
A4. The Sale of Student loans Act applies to England and Wales only and allows the sale of student loans to a third-party purchaser.
You can view the act at www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2008/pdf/ukpga_20080010_en.pdf.
A5. Employment and support allowance (ESA) is a new benefit paid if your ability to work is limited by ill health or disability and you are claiming after 27 October 2008. It replaces both incapacity benefit (IB) and income support (IS) paid on the grounds of incapacity for new claims from that date.
You can find out more about ESA and how it affects students by going to our employment and support allowance page.
A6. If you are already on incapacity benefit (IB) and income support (IS) you will remain on those benefits when employment and support allowance (ESA) is introduced on 27 October 2008.
The Government proposes that eventually all IB claimants will be reassessed using the new ESA work capability assessment with the intention of transferring them onto ESA. How this will affect students is unclear. Disability Alliance will post information on this as and when we find out more details.
Students can claim employment and support allowance but the rules are stricter than for incapacity benefit and income support on grounds of incapacity. For more information see our Factsheet F31 - employment and support allowance overview.
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