The Student Room Group

Funding for new degree after suspending for health reasons (eventually withdrew)

Hi, I had health issues throughout my first degree at Oxford. I suspended my studies in the final term of my third year (should have done so before, but won't go into that). I had GP support from my first year until a couple of years after suspending. I know I would normally be entitled to only one year's funding towards a 'new' degree, but would I be a candidate, even a good candidate, for further funding through 'exceptional circumstances' given that I not only suspended/withdrew due to health reasons that required treatment during and after my time at uni, but that these issues seriously affected my studies from the first year? I suspended back in 2013, but would likely still be able to get some contextual info from the Senior Tutor at the college who is still working there, in addition to medical history/GP and therapist references.

As a secondary question, now I am over 25 and have been living independently ever since I started/left uni, depending on how you view it, would I be entitled to full bursary/funding for those years I do have funding for? Also, I currently earn decent money (£35k+) despite the awful effects of wasting so many years and not having a degree. Would this income affect uni funding or would they assess me as not earning during study (I do not intend to work whilst studying)? Thanks for your help.
(edited 2 years ago)
Although one of the SFE official reps should be able to answer more in depth and authoritatively, my experience (having had a similar experience to you) has been:

I interrupted my studies for health reasons, and I was able to apply for Compelling Personal Reasons (CPR) providing a cover letter with details of my reason for interrupting, plus accompanying medical evidence from my GP and counsellors I had been seeing. This provided one year of additional funding. You have to apply for CPR each year you want to receive it and I don't know if you can receive CPR in multiple years for the same reason.

After interrupting my studies again and then withdrawing from my course, when I later went back to studying I was not eligible for further tuition fee loan funding for a full time course and only could receive a maintenance loan (my earlier studies had all been full time) but I was eligible for both tuition fee and maintenance loan funding for a part time course (as PT vs FT entitlement are calculated separately and as long as you don't have an equivalent or lower level qualification, they won't affect each other in principle).

So I don't think you will be able to get full funding for a new full time degree, unless you can apply for CPR repeatedly. You could still get a maintenance loan but you may not get a tuition fee loan in every year. However you probably could get full funding for a part time course. That has been my experience!

In terms of the income, my understanding is there is a mechanism by which you can indicate whether you are leaving your job to pursue your course, in which case your income will be considered zero for that year (aside from income from e.g. investments etc, which is a separate section). So I think in principle you will be considered to have no income if you leave your job to start a new course. As above though you may only be eligible for a maintenance loan if you are applying for a full time course.
(edited 2 years ago)
Original post by Refusetolose
Hi, I had health issues throughout my first degree at Oxford. I suspended my studies in the final term of my third year (should have done so before, but won't go into that). I had GP support from my first year until a couple of years after suspending. I know I would normally be entitled to only one year's funding towards a 'new' degree, but would I be a candidate, even a good candidate, for further funding through 'exceptional circumstances' given that I not only suspended/withdrew due to health reasons that required treatment during and after my time at uni, but that these issues seriously affected my studies from the first year? I suspended back in 2013, but would likely still be able to get some contextual info from the Senior Tutor at the college who is still working there, in addition to medical history/GP and therapist references.

As a secondary question, now I am over 25 and have been living independently ever since I started/left uni, depending on how you view it, would I be entitled to full bursary/funding for those years I do have funding for? Also, I currently earn decent money (£35k+) despite the awful effects of wasting so many years and not having a degree. Would this income affect uni funding or would they assess me as not earning during study (I do not intend to work whilst studying)? Thanks for your help.

Hi there,

If you can please send us a DM on Twitter or Facebook with your Name and Customer Reference Number, one of the team can access your account and view your previous study to work out how many years future entitlement you may have remaining.

As you are 25, we ask you to declare any taxable unearned income (income received without working) that you expect to receive in the academic year (AY) which you are applying for. We would not take into account your income from working whilst assessing your entitlement.

Thanks, Amy
Original post by artful_lounger
Although one of the SFE official reps should be able to answer more in depth and authoritatively, my experience (having had a similar experience to you) has been:

I interrupted my studies for health reasons, and I was able to apply for Compelling Personal Reasons (CPR) providing a cover letter with details of my reason for interrupting, plus accompanying medical evidence from my GP and counsellors I had been seeing. This provided one year of additional funding. You have to apply for CPR each year you want to receive it and I don't know if you can receive CPR in multiple years for the same reason.

After interrupting my studies again and then withdrawing from my course, when I later went back to studying I was not eligible for further tuition fee loan funding for a full time course and only could receive a maintenance loan (my earlier studies had all been full time) but I was eligible for both tuition fee and maintenance loan funding for a part time course (as PT vs FT entitlement are calculated separately and as long as you don't have an equivalent or lower level qualification, they won't affect each other in principle).

So I don't think you will be able to get full funding for a new full time degree, unless you can apply for CPR repeatedly. You could still get a maintenance loan but you may not get a tuition fee loan in every year. However you probably could get full funding for a part time course. That has been my experience!

In terms of the income, my understanding is there is a mechanism by which you can indicate whether you are leaving your job to pursue your course, in which case your income will be considered zero for that year (aside from income from e.g. investments etc, which is a separate section). So I think in principle you will be considered to have no income if you leave your job to start a new course. As above though you may only be eligible for a maintenance loan if you are applying for a full time course.


Thanks for your response. Perhaps I am misunderstanding but if (like everyone) I had four years full time funding then I should still have one year now, so that would mean I would need to apply for CPR for two remaining years of a new full time degree, one year at a time? Was them not providing funding for new FT degree due to you already receiving extra funding via CRN, or do they not allow you to 'carry over' any unused funding (in my case one year) to a new degree? The point about income is useful, but of course I would need, at the least, a tuition fee loan to even being a new course.
Original post by Refusetolose
Thanks for your response. Perhaps I am misunderstanding but if (like everyone) I had four years full time funding then I should still have one year now, so that would mean I would need to apply for CPR for two remaining years of a new full time degree, one year at a time? Was them not providing funding for new FT degree due to you already receiving extra funding via CRN, or do they not allow you to 'carry over' any unused funding (in my case one year) to a new degree? The point about income is useful, but of course I would need, at the least, a tuition fee loan to even being a new course.


In my case it was due to prior study disqualifying me (I had also done a foundation year before that so had slightly more study than you). Overall the formula remains: "length of degree you are requesting funding for (i.e. current degree)" - "number of years of prior study in HE" + one year ("gift" year). Then CPR years get added on top of that if approved, and you have to apply for each one year at a time as I understand.

Note that this is for tuition fee loans - you should be able to receive a maintenance loan in all years if you haven't yet earned a degree, I believe. You could potentially use a maintenance loan to pay your tuition fees if you can find a way to manage your living costs without the maintenance loan of course (although due to the disbursement times for maintenance loans you may need to agree a payment plan with dates in line with this with the uni).

The above is all for full time courses. For a part-time course, if you haven't received a qualification from your prior studies, you would basically have a blank slate and be eligible for full funding. This may also be the case for full time exception courses (mostly allied health professions courses) although this is honestly a bit of a grey area to me - I know they are exceptions if you hold a degree already, but it's never been clear what the situation is with exception courses if you didn't get a qualification in the first place.
Original post by artful_lounger
In my case it was due to prior study disqualifying me (I had also done a foundation year before that so had slightly more study than you). Overall the formula remains: "length of degree you are requesting funding for (i.e. current degree)" - "number of years of prior study in HE" + one year ("gift" year). Then CPR years get added on top of that if approved, and you have to apply for each one year at a time as I understand.

Note that this is for tuition fee loans - you should be able to receive a maintenance loan in all years if you haven't yet earned a degree, I believe. You could potentially use a maintenance loan to pay your tuition fees if you can find a way to manage your living costs without the maintenance loan of course (although due to the disbursement times for maintenance loans you may need to agree a payment plan with dates in line with this with the uni).

The above is all for full time courses. For a part-time course, if you haven't received a qualification from your prior studies, you would basically have a blank slate and be eligible for full funding. This may also be the case for full time exception courses (mostly allied health professions courses) although this is honestly a bit of a grey area to me - I know they are exceptions if you hold a degree already, but it's never been clear what the situation is with exception courses if you didn't get a qualification in the first place.

Thanks again. So, as I thought, I'm looking to fund 2 years of full time, hopefully through extra funding gained via CPR.

I'd be surprised if they'd give me a full tuition loan for a whole new degree, but great if they will. The only silver lining here is I was paying £3.5k fees first time around so don't have massive outstanding loans for a degree I never finished.

A good point, I expect a maintenance loan for someone 25+ who will have no income whilst studying is quite large, I'll take a look. I won't go into too much detail but I currently work for a large Russell Group University and I know they're very flexible with payment plans for students that have finance issues. On a side note, I would likely be able to continue working part-time during my degree, but will look to see if this reduces my maintenance loan/grant entitlement. If it does, I doubt it will make sense to work at all.

I know which course I want to study (Computer Science) so unfortunately it is not an exception course.
Original post by Refusetolose
Thanks again. So, as I thought, I'm looking to fund 2 years of full time, hopefully through extra funding gained via CPR.

I'd be surprised if they'd give me a full tuition loan for a whole new degree, but great if they will. The only silver lining here is I was paying £3.5k fees first time around so don't have massive outstanding loans for a degree I never finished.

A good point, I expect a maintenance loan for someone 25+ who will have no income whilst studying is quite large, I'll take a look. I won't go into too much detail but I currently work for a large Russell Group University and I know they're very flexible with payment plans for students that have finance issues. On a side note, I would likely be able to continue working part-time during my degree, but will look to see if this reduces my maintenance loan/grant entitlement. If it does, I doubt it will make sense to work at all.

I know which course I want to study (Computer Science) so unfortunately it is not an exception course.


CS is an exception course but only for part-time, so that doesn't help unfortunately unless you are looking at PT courses (in which case you would be eligible for full funding anyway regardless of whether it was an exception course).

Working could in theory reduce your maintenance loan entitlement, but it's extremely unlikely working part-time will reduce it because you'd need to be earning over the lowest band (I think around £25k PA), in a part-time role - you'd have to be on a pretty high hourly wage to make that much! So most likely you won't be able to earn enough to make a difference in that. The maximum maintenance loan is I think ~£9k outside of London and ~£12k in London, so should cover (most) of the tuition fee costs (of course you still need to be able to meet your living costs and will need to figure out how to pay for those separately!).

Also many unis offer bursaries to students from low income backgrounds including mature students - some might have specific bursaries earmarked for mature students as well. Oxford and Cambridge have very generous bursary/scholarship schemes for example, for students whose household income is below the lowest band SFE has (~£25k PA again I think). Obviously this is separate to SFE and you'll need to look at individual unis to see what is available; many offer ~£1500-3000 per year, Oxford and Cambridge in total ends up being around £4-5k once all benefits are accounted for. Some have other benefits (LSE has an accommodation discount as well as a bursary which combines to a very attractive financial package for example) which can help too, and some unis also have merit based bursaries if you have high grades on entry.
Original post by Amy SFE
Hi there,

If you can please send us a DM on Twitter or Facebook with your Name and Customer Reference Number, one of the team can access your account and view your previous study to work out how many years future entitlement you may have remaining.

As you are 25, we ask you to declare any taxable unearned income (income received without working) that you expect to receive in the academic year (AY) which you are applying for. We would not take into account your income from working whilst assessing your entitlement.

Thanks, Amy

Thankyou for the advice. I sent a dm this morning, but have had no response. Can you please let me know what kind of response time I can expect?

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