Students and Universal Credit: when you can claim

You cannot usually get Universal Credit while you are studying full-time. That is the starting point and it catches most undergraduates: the exclusion applies whether or not you take a loan, whether or not you have savings, and whether or not you are looking for work alongside the course. Your education or training provider normally decides whether a course counts as full-time, and DWP takes that decision as read. Attending a full-time course on a part-time basis does not help, because you are still treated as studying full-time. A course does not have to lead to a qualification to count, and it can be academic, practical or a mix of the two. The rule works as a closed list of exceptions rather than a discretion, so the only question worth asking is whether you fit one of them.

There are seven routes through. You can claim while studying full-time if you are responsible for a child, as a single person or as a couple. You can claim if you live with a partner who is eligible for Universal Credit in their own right. You can claim if you have reached the qualifying age for Pension Credit and live with a partner who has not, as a mixed-age couple. You can claim if you received a Migration Notice telling you to move to Universal Credit. You can claim if you are 21 or under, in full-time non-advanced education and do not have parental support, which covers leaving local authority care. You can claim if you were assessed as having limited capability for work before the course started and you are entitled to a qualifying disability benefit: Personal Independence Payment, Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance, Armed Forces Independence Payment, or the Scottish equivalents, which are Adult Disability Payment, Scottish Adult Disability Living Allowance, Child Disability Payment and Pension Age Disability Payment. And you can claim if you are in full-time non-advanced education, do not get a student loan or maintenance grant, and are available for work, though on a course of more than twelve hours a week that route only opens on 1 September after your nineteenth birthday.

Part-time study is treated differently. If you are available for work and studying part-time you can normally claim without needing any of the exceptions above, though a work coach will expect the course to fit around your job search rather than the other way round. Non-advanced education is the level below higher education: GCSEs, A levels, T levels, BTECs and NVQs up to level 3, and the Scottish equivalents up to SCQF level 6. Advanced education is degree level and above, which includes foundation degrees, HNCs and HNDs. The distinction matters because the 21-or-under route only covers non-advanced courses. If your course involves more than twelve hours a week of non-advanced education, the part-time route applies only from 1 September after your nineteenth birthday.

If you do qualify, the next question is what your funding does to the award. Maintenance loans count as income and reduce Universal Credit pound for pound. Loans for tuition fees and other costs of study are excluded. The maximum maintenance loan you are eligible for is used, even if you did not apply for it, turned it down or took less than the full amount, so declining the loan does not raise your award. The figure is divided by the number of assessment periods in your course year and charged against each one, with a fixed monthly amount disregarded. A Special Support Loan or Grant is ignored entirely. Postgraduate Master's and Doctoral loans have thirty per cent counted, because they mix tuition and living costs into one payment. The Universal Credit Calculator for Students works out the monthly deduction from your own loan and dates.

Two dates decide most student claims: when the course starts and where the assessment periods fall. No student income is taken off for an assessment period that covers the first day of the summer holidays, for a whole assessment period spent on the summer break, or for the period in which the course ends. That is why a summer claim can be worth considerably more than a term-time one. Report the course, its start and end dates and the loan amount when you claim, and report them again if any of them change. If you are close to one of the exceptions rather than clearly inside it, get the claim checked by a free welfare rights service first. A refused claim and a withdrawn legacy benefit is a bad combination to unwind.