Website of the UK government

What types of financial help are available?

Depending on your circumstances, you may qualify for:

• help with tuition fees only
• help with tuition fees - and also help with living costs and certain other expenses

Help with tuition fees

EU nationals

As an EU national, or a family member of an EU national, you can generally apply for financial help towards the cost of tuition fees when studying in England, Wales or Northern Ireland if:

• you will have been living within the EEA and/or Switzerland for at least three years when you start your course, and
• your main reason for being in the EEA and/or Switzerland was not to receive full-time education

If you or your parent, guardian or partner were temporarily employed outside the EEA and Switzerland for all or part of the three-year period, you may still qualify for help.

• Find a list of EEA countries Opens new window

EEA and Swiss migrant workers

You may also be eligible for financial help with tuition fees if you are an EEA or Swiss migrant worker or self-employed person in the UK. A migrant worker is someone who is not a national of the country they're working in.

Usually, you'll qualify for EEA or Swiss migrant worker status if all the following apply:

• you are a national of an EEA country or Switzerland
• you are working in the UK
• you will have been ‘ordinarily resident’ in the EEA and Switzerland for at least three years when you start your course

You may also qualify if you're a family member of an EEA or Swiss migrant worker in the UK.

Children of Turkish workers

You could get help with tuition fees from 1 September 2006 onwards if you qualify as the child of a ‘Turkish worker’. Help is generally available if all of the following apply:

• you're the child of a Turkish national who is ordinarily resident in the UK, and who is, or has been, lawfully employed in the UK
• you will have been ‘ordinarily resident’ in the EEA, Switzerland or Turkey for at least three years when you start your course
• you will be resident in the UK on the first day of the academic year in which your course starts

Help with living costs and other expenses

As well as help with tuition fees, you may be able to apply for help with living costs and certain other expenses if you:

• will have lived in the ‘UK or Islands’ (the UK plus the Channel Islands and Isle of Man) for three years or more when you start your course
• are a student from England who’s returning to the UK to study after having exercised a right of residence elsewhere in the EEA or Switzerland
• have EEA or Swiss migrant worker status, or
• qualify for help as the child of a ‘Turkish worker’, as described above
  

If this applies to you, you'll need to follow a different application procedure. Follow the below link to find out more.

• EU students: help with living costs and other expenses

Does your course qualify?

To qualify for the support described in the ‘Students from other EU countries’ section, your course should lead to one of these qualifications:

If you are studying a postgraduate or professional course other than Initial Teacher Training, different rules apply. See ‘Funding postgraduate study’.

• Funding postgraduate study

Not sure whether you qualify?

Contact the Student Finance Services European Team

If you have any questions about whether you qualify for finance as an EU student, contact the Student Finance Services European Team at the Student Loans Company.

• Contact the Student Finance Services European Team

Contact Student Finance England

New students starting a course in the 2009/2010 academic year should contact Student Finance England with any questions about qualifying for finance through Swiss or EEA migrant worker status, or as the child of a Turkish worker in the UK.

• Contact Student Finance England

Studying in Scotland

The information on this page is a guide for those studying in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. If you are studying in Scotland, see the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) website for further details.

• Apply for student finance at the Student Awards Agency for Scotland Opens new window

Asking for your application to be re-assessed

If you have been advised that you're not eligible for student finance for reasons relating to residence and you don't agree, it may be possible to have your application re-assessed in exceptional circumstances.

Contact the organisation that dealt with your application to find out how.

Next step: find out how much you can get

If you satisfy the conditions for help with course fees but not the extra conditions for help with living costs and other expenses, you'll be classed as a European Union (EU) student when applying for finance.

See the pages below to find out what help is available. 

• Finance for full-time EU students
• Finance for part-time EU students