Returning to Uni, Student Finance and Compelling Personal Reasons

Hello, I hope someone can help.

I first went to University between 2004-7, but had to leave half-way through my third year because of a serious unrelated mental health breakdown and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. It's taken a few years, but I'm now much more stable, and I'm hoping to start a new course later this year, and have an Unconditional Offer.

I've been looking into the rules on student finance on returning, and I understand the general rule: Course length PLUS 1 year MINUS any years of previous study. Under that I would only have one years' support going back, and it would be for the final year.

I also know that it's possible to assemble a dossier of medical records, Doctors' notes and release forms from my previous Uni in order to apply for discretionary extra support. However I'm still incredibly anxious about my chances of succeeding, and though I'm recovered and stable enough to think that attending Uni again would be good for me, I am very worried about what might happen if I were to have to self-fund. It might either be impossible, or so stressful as to cause a relapse.

Is there anyone out there with some helpful advice on my way forward?

Many thanks,

Joe.

Reply 1

cmcjw

Hi Joe

I'm afraid that I don't really have any advice for you. I just wanted to say that I am in an almost identical situation. Except that my mental illness was linked to the stress of my course and I was only in my second year.

Where did you get the details of the stuff to put in your dossier for CPR? I rang SFE and they just said to get a letter from my GP and send a cover letter. It did sound a bit too simple.

I'm also being haunted by fears especially the fear of relapse. My family keep on trying to get me to see how different and mentally stable and robust I am now. But it's still scarey.

Anyway, I wish you all the best in your studies.

C

Reply 2

joeblurton

C,

I'm sorry to hear you've been in a similar situation. I know this is a few months down the line (I've only just seen your reply) but for the sake of completeness I thought I'd tell you what I sent off to SFE:

1. A note from my GP,
2. A "to whom it may concern" letter from my CPN,
3. About 10-12 pages of my medical notes from the period concerned (not pleasant reading, but I suppose that's the point), obtained from the relevant PCT.

I'd say in your case, if you can prove some outside influence as one of the reasons for leaving and your collapse in health, you'd be fine with getting a discretionary extra year. But as you say the stress of the course was to blame for leaving, I wonder how that would affect your chances.

I've made a bit of an assumption in my application that they might also be nominally assessing the likelihood of any extra funding having a benefit; i.e. would you be likely to complete the course? My CPN letter hopefully covered that latter consideration with his voluntary statement of his faith in my new stability and the, excuse me, "holistic" benefits of my attending in September.

As I say, the latter is just my wild assumption, and there's nothing I've seen in the guidance to support it, but I really doubt it does any harm to present evidence of your subsequent recovery to complement the evidence of the initial collapse.

I hope some of that's useful, to you or to someone else.

Best of luck,

Joe.

Returning to Uni, Student Finance and Compelling Personal Reasons

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