I am unemployed living in the UK and I want to apply for a further education course.?
Am I entitled to a Government Grant or a mature student loan?
Hi, the previous answerer was referring to higher education (i.e. university). For further education, there is a different system. Basically there are no standard loans or grants, what you can get differs from course to course and from college to college. One standard thing which you will almost certainly be entitled to is the Adult Learning Grant, which pays £30 per week to people studying for 12 hours or more per week. As you are currently unemployed you may also be entitled to pay a lower course fee, or none at all.This depends on the course though – the government chooses which courses can have concessions and usually they are the more ‘useful’ or vocational courses. At my local college, for example, things like hairdressing, woodwork and computing courses are free for people who are unemployed or on a low income, but courses like languages or anything related to arts and crafts charge full fees regardless. You would need to check with your college. There may also be course specific grants, for example on my access course I got a £50 one-off grant for course materials, but these are unlikely to be very large.
To be honest there isn’t much available for college level courses. If the course is less than 15 hours per week you can continue to get JSA and housing benefit. Otherwise, most people just try and get a part time job – that’s what I did, and most other people on my course. To find out more information that is specific to your course, you could make an appointment with the college providing it – they usually have some kind of a student finance office which helps people with these issues. Good luck!
