St Catharine's Cambridge Financial Guarantee - I don't have enough money

£19,000 seems an awful lot of money, unless they're including the tuition fees as well? They really should just be asking for enough to cover that, rent, and kitchen charges etc, rather than giving you estimated living costs if that's what they're doing. In terms of student finance I think you can provide new evidence if the household income has changed which should give you more money.

In all cases though your first point of call should be emailing your college and explaining your situation. Cambridge can be very generous with money where needed. Hope you get it sorted

How come it’s £19,000? I got a similar letter from Oxford but all I had to prove I could fund was my tuition fees (on my course I had to self fund some of this, but the rest is covered by student finance).

They've included tuition fees as well as £9670 to cover living fees. My loans will cover tuition fees but it won't cover all the living fees

Today I received an email from St Catharine's saying I had to fill in an financial guarantee and essentially prove I will have enough money for my first year there, the total of which comes to just under £19,000. However, even with student finance I'm still going to be below this figure and I can't rely on my parents for the rest. I'm currently experiencing some unusual circumstances in which my student finance will not reflect my current situation as my household income has decreased dramatically within the last few months so I'm likely to receive a smaller maintenance loan than I actually need. I'm hoping I'd be eligible for the Cambridge bursary but the financial guide seems to indicate that I must have the £19,000 independent of the bursary. Has anyone experienced a similar funding issue for Cambridge before?

Oh okay, that’s a lot of money to just have lying around tho isn’t it. Maybe you could email admissions asking them if they’ll accept a lower amount?

Are you a 'home' student for SFE purposes, Megan? Is this undergrad or postgrad?

I'm an undergrad, I'm not too sure what you mean by 'home' student sorry, I'm not an international student if that's what you mean, I live in the UK

By 'home' student I mean you're entitled to full SFE support. Are you British, basically and getting a full tuition fee loan and other financial support from SFE?

Yeah it is a lot, definitely not the sort of money I have just lying around ahaha, I think I will have to email them to ask about it

Ohhh sorry, yeah I am British and getting full financial support from them

OK then. Things must have changed, because I didn't need to sign any sort of financial guarantee and I was under the impression that 'normal' undergrads (i.e. fully-funded UK students) didn't need to either. I don't see how having to sign a £20,000 guarantee fits with the 'widening access' agenda, which makes me think something might not be right with this.

@Peterhouse Admissions, I know this is a different college, but is this sort of guarantee now a standard requirement for Home undergrad students?

I wouldn't say standard as such, but it's becoming more common. At Peterhouse, we've been asking our undergraduates to do them for several years but it's possible that we will get rid of them in the near future.

In response to your point about widening access, for UK offer holders, they're more about indicating how much things might cost rather than absolutely binding you/your family into supporting you. We definitely recognise that most people will not have that sort of money in the bank! I process the returned guarantees for Peterhouse and know that some students have returned theirs to include bursary information, which is absolutely fine. if you want to calculate how much you think you might be eligible for, you can do so here: https://www.cambridgestudents.cam.ac.uk/cambridgebursary/eligibility-and-further-information. I'd be very surprised if the Admissions team at St Catharine's aren't understanding about this, so please do email them and ask - I know at least some of them are still working from home, so you should get a reply.