You do not have to apply for a bursary. The College uses the assessment of 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;
• 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 8.00pm and Saturday and Sunday 9.00am to 4.00pm.

If you have not yet made a 2023-24 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 8.00pm and Saturday and Sunday 9.00am 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. This includes accommodation fee reductions and/or any cash payments received. 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 Financial Wellbeing Team, who can be contacted on moneymatters@royalholloway.ac.uk.

Students eligible for non-competitive bursaries and scholarships will receive an email at the end of October confirming their eligibility and providing further information. If you believe you are eligible but have not heard anything by the beginning of November, please contact studentservices@royalholloway.ac.uk with your student ID number and your Student Finance Customer Reference Number so we can investigate further.

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.
• have given permission to the SLC to share your verified household income information and details of your maintenance loan application with Royal Holloway.

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 us as early as possible so that we 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 7 June 2024, we will not be able to assess you for a bursary for the academic year 2023-24 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. You will need to provide us with your bank details and you can do this through the ''Money'' tab of Campus Connect. You will receive a confirmation email once they have been successfully updated. Please see our FAQ 'How do I provide my bank account details' below for further information.

To upload your bank details, you'll need to log into Campus Connect, then:

• Go to the ''Money'' tab and click ''My bank details'' from the menu on the left of the screen.
• If you haven't entered any details before, a message saying ‘Your UK Bank details are not provided’ will be displayed. You'll need to click ''More detail''.
• Fill in your bank account details and click ''submit''. You'll need to enter your details twice as part of the process.

You will receive a confirmation email once your details have been successfully updated. If you have any questions or experience any problems uploading your details, please email us at studentservices@royalholloway.ac.uk. 

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 this. In order to do this, you would need to speak with our Financial Wellbeing 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. Once they have looked at your situation, they may then authorise an early payment of your bursary.

To arrange an appointment to discuss this with the Financial Wellbeing Team please email moneymatters@royalholloway.ac.uk.

We check for new household income information throughout the year up until 7 June. If you have applied late for student finance for any reason, we will assess you if the information is received by 7 June 2024. 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 7 June 2024 will not be made.

If you are having difficulties with your loan assessment, you may wish to contact the Bursaries and Scholarships Officer at student-administration@royalholloway.ac.uk.

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 2022/23 academic year ended on Friday 9 June 2023.

There are a number of possible reasons:

• You have not yet provided us with your bank account details. Please see ‘How do I provide my bank account details?’ for more information.
• 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 in receipt of a maintenance grant. 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 8.00pm and Saturday and Sunday 9.00am 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 8.00pm and Saturday and Sunday 9.00am to 4.00pm.

If you believe that you have provided all of the above information, please contact the Bursaries and Scholarships Officer at student-administration@royalholloway.ac.uk. 

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 7 June 2024, you will not receive any payments. Therefore, please ensure that you contact student finance to progress your maintenance loan application before Friday 7 June 2024.