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Student Benefits Guide

Adviser notes

How the rules work

Most full-time students cannot normally receive Universal Credit. Some full-time students can qualify. This page is the short map of those exceptions and of how student income is calculated. Turn on adviser mode in the header to see citations inside the guide itself.

Who counts as a full-time student

Universal Credit treats you as receiving education if you are on a full-time course of advanced education; or another full-time course for which a maintenance loan or grant is provided; or, otherwise, a course that cannot sit alongside your work-related requirements. The provider decides whether a course is full time. Part-time attendance on a full-time course still counts as full time.

The student exceptions

  • Responsible for a child or qualifying young person (including many lone parents).
  • Living with a partner who is eligible for Universal Credit.
  • Disabled students: a qualifying disability benefit and a limited capability for work decision made before the course started (since December 2021). PIP alone is not enough.
  • Aged 21 or under in full-time non-advanced education without parental support.
  • Some further-education students with no loan or maintenance grant who are available for work.
  • Reached Pension Credit age and living with a partner who has not.
  • Received a Migration Notice to move to Universal Credit.

Student income, in brief

  • Use maximum maintenance-loan entitlement, not the amount borrowed.
  • Do not divide the year by 12. Divide by the assessment periods of the course year.
  • Ignore student income in the period that includes the first day of the long vacation, later periods wholly in that vacation, and the period in which the course ends.
  • Disregard the first £110 of student income in each relevant assessment period.
  • Tuition Fee Loans, DSA, childcare grants, Parents’ Learning Allowance and Special Support are ignored.
  • Postgraduate Master’s and Doctoral Loans: 30% counts, 70% is ignored.

Council Tax is not Universal Credit

Full-time students are usually disregarded for Council Tax, and an all-student household is usually exempt. That is a local-tax rule, not a benefit-entitlement rule. Council Tax notes.

Primary sources