You do not have to apply for a bursary. You have to have a Means Tested Application with the Student Finance. The College uses the assessment of verified household income carried out by Student Finance to automatically assess undergraduate students for bursary eligibility.

For us to be able to assess your bursary eligibility, you must:

• be eligible and apply for the full maintenance loan and be liable for the full tuition fees of £9,790;
• give permission to the SLC to share your verified household income information and details of your maintenance loan application with Royal Holloway.

You need a means-tested application with Student Finance  as without one, we are not able to access your bursary eligibility as we have no household income information to use. If you have made an application to SLC for this year, then I would recommend that you speak with SLC to check the progress of the application. You can call SLC on 0300 100 0607 and the line is open Monday to Friday 8.00am to 4.00pm.

If you have not yet made a 2026-27 means-tested application, you can do so by logging into your online account, completing the necessary information and providing full evidence of your household income.

You and/or your sponsors (usually parents/guardians or partner) need to provide consent for SLC to share your household income information with Royal Holloway, as without this we are not able to assess your eligibility for an income related award. Both you and your sponsors will need to set up this consent and can do so by calling 0300 100 0607. The line is open Monday to Friday 8.00am to 4.00pm.

The only way the University can assess students for the Royal Holloway Bursary is if your household income is means tested by SLC. You will need to fill in the student finance form as if you are applying for student finance but put £0 in the amounts you are requesting and write a cover letter indicating that you only wish to be means tested for the purposes of Bursary Administration.

No. Students who interrupt from their programme before the end of the academic year may be asked to repay part of their bursary, calculated on a pro-rata basis. Entitlement to all future payments in that academic year will also cease. Upon a student’s return from an interruption of studies, a student will be eligible to be reconsidered for any payments not received during the year in which they interrupted their studies, subject to meeting the relevant eligibility criteria. These payments will be made according to the original instalment schedule (e.g. if instalments 2 and 3 were not received, these will be paid at the end of the spring and summer terms).

Bursaries are only paid once per programme year, and this includes situations where a student is on a period of interruption or repeating a year of the course. Therefore, if you received your bursary last year for the programme year you are currently in, you are not eligible to receive the bursary again this year. When you continue into your next year your bursary eligibility will be assessed again for that year. Retrospective payments will not be made.

If you feel that you will struggle financially this year, you may want to speak to our Money Advice team, who can be contacted on moneymatters@royalholloway.ac.uk.

Students eligible for non-competitive bursaries and scholarships will receive an email from Student Finance from end of October confirming their eligibility and providing further information. You are required to login to your student finance portal and check letters/emails section. You can find answers to common questions about Bursaries and Scholarships on Ask Royal Holloway. If your query falls outside of what's already addressed, you can contact a member of the team using the 'Ask a Question' button, located at the bottom of our help pages. This ensures your query reaches the right team promptly, saving you time and ensuring a faster response.

To ensure your bursary is paid on time you will need to have completed all of the below steps by the following dates:

• applied and have been assessed as eligible for the full maintenance loan and be liable for the full tuition fees of £9,790.
• have given permission to the SLC to share your verified household income information and details of your maintenance loan application with Royal Holloway.

 

Instalment date	Date we require your information by
Friday 11 December 2026	Monday 23 November 2026
Thursday 25 March 2027	Friday 12 March 2027
Friday 11 June 2027	Friday 28 May 2027

Bursaries will not be paid outside of the instalment dates listed above. If we do not have the required information by the above deadlines, you will still be assessed for the bursary once we have all your information. However, you will not receive the payment until the next instalment date. If there is a delay in your SFE application being completed, please contact Student Loan Company as early as possible so that they can help you to resolve it.

If we do not receive the information we need from SLC by the end of the academic year on Friday 11 June 2027, we will not be able to assess you for a bursary for the academic year 2026-27 and you will lose your eligibility for the current year. After the academic year has ended no retrospective payments will be made.

The date on which you receive your bursary or scholarship also depends on the number of instalments in which your bursary or scholarship is paid. If you are expecting to receive an income related bursary in one instalment, this will usually be paid in March. Please consult the information above on specific bursaries to find out when you can expect to receive your award.

Cash awards are paid by bank transfer directly into your bank account by the Student Finance. Student Finance will make payment in to the same bank account they pay your maintenance loan. If you haven't provided student finance with your bank details you have to do this so that you can be paid. 

To upload your bank details, you'll need to log into your student finance portal then:

• Go to the ''My bank details'' tab and update your bank details. You have to do this once in the academic year unless your bank details have changed.

You can check student finance portal if your bank account details have been successfully updated. You can also check letters/emails section for any updates regarding your bursary. If you have any questions or experience any problems uploading bank details, please contact student finance Telephone: 0300 100 0607 or chat to an advisor in your online account.

It is not normally possible to make an early payment of the bursary. However, in situations of exceptional financial hardship we may be able to arrange for emergency support. In order to do this, you would need to speak with our Money Advice team who will check that you are receiving all the funding you are entitled to and suggest other sources of funding you can apply for. 

To arrange an appointment to discuss this with the Money Advice team please email moneymatters@royalholloway.ac.uk 

We check for new household income information throughout the year up until 11 June. If you have applied late for student finance for any reason, we will assess you if the information is received by 11 June 2027. You will not be able to receive a bursary until we have received the information from student finance.

Please be aware that retrospective payments beyond the end of the academic year of Friday 11 June 2027 will not be made.

You can find answers to common questions about Bursaries and Scholarships on Ask Royal Holloway. If your query falls outside of what's already addressed, you can contact a member of the team using the 'Ask a Question' button, located at the bottom of our help pages. This ensures your query reaches the right team promptly, saving you time and ensuring a faster response. 

We are not able to make retrospective payments of bursaries or scholarships outside of the academic year in which they should have been awarded. The 2025/26 academic year ended on Friday 12 June 2026.

There are a number of possible reasons:

• You have not yet provided student finance with your bank account details. 
• You do not meet all of the eligibility criteria. Please check carefully that you meet all of the requirements for the award.
• For bursaries and scholarships which are awarded based on household income, you, or one of your sponsors, have not given consent to share financial information with Royal Holloway. We use information from student finance to confirm your household income and that you are eligible for full  maintenance loan. All members of your household will need to give consent. For example, if you live with both parents then both your mother and father will need to give consent, as will you. You can do this by calling SLC on 0300 100 0607 – they are open Monday to Friday 8.00am to 4.00pm.
• Your household income assessment is provisional. Royal Holloway requires that your household income assessment by SLC has been finalised and verified so you will need to contact SLC to query with them why your household income assessment is still provisional. Normally this is because they are waiting to receive some additional documentation from one of your sponsors. You can call SLC on 0300 100 0607 – they are open Monday to Friday 8.00am to 4.00pm.

You can find answers to common questions about Bursaries and Scholarships on Ask Royal Holloway. If your query falls outside of what's already addressed, you can contact a member of the team using the 'Ask a Question' button, located at the bottom of our help pages. This ensures your query reaches the right team promptly, saving you time and ensuring a faster response.

If Student Finance has not confirmed your maintenance loan and verified household income by the following cut off dates, you will not receive payment as outlined in the payment schedule. If you miss the Term 1 deadline, you will receive your Term 1 payment in Term 2. If you miss Term 1 and Term 2 deadlines, you will receive all instalments in Term 3.

Please note, however, that if your household income information is still not confirmed by the end of Term 3, Friday 11 June 2027, you will not receive any payments. Therefore, please ensure that you contact student finance to progress your Means Tested application before Friday 11 June 2027.