Applying for Student Finance as a Care Leaver or Estranged Student

Please note the below information is correct for 2024

Applying as an independent student

Care Leavers

To be classed as an independent student by SFE you will need to provide evidence.  This normally needs to be a letter from your Local Authority (LA) or social worker confirming you:

were under the care of their LA, including the dates you were in care
have now left the care of the LA
have not returned to the care of your parent(s) prior to the first day of the
first academic year of your course
are a care leaver as defined in the Children (Leaving Care) Act 2000

You will only need to provide this evidence once at the start of your course. You can find more information from Student Finance England here or in this leaflet.

In order to guarantee your funding for the start of your course, you need to apply to student finance and submit the evidence to them by 17 May 2024.

Estranged Students

For SFE to consider you irreconcilably estranged from your parents, you won’t have had any written or verbal contact with either parent and this is unlikely to change. Usually, for a period of at least twelve months, but SFE will review all applications on a case-by-case basis.

Some common examples of estrangement are:

You are living with friends, or with other family members such as aunts/uncles/grandparents.
You have only ever known one of your parents and they have recently passed away.
You still have very limited contact with your parent(s) for specific reasons, for example keeping in contact with siblings.

SFE will not consider you as estranged just because your parents do not financially support you, you don’t get on with your parents or you don’t live with your parents. You can find more information from SFE here.

To be assessed as estranged you will need to fill in a Confirmation of Estrangement form which can be found here.  To complete this you will need to:

ask a third party to complete some of the sections. This needs to be ‘an independent person of good standing in the community’ (more information on who this can and cannot be can be found on the form)
give the third-party consent to share information on your estrangement. This can be as much or as little as you are happy with and you are not obliged to share any information if you don’t want to, however more information may help your application.  A good thing to consider (if you are happy in doing so) is to include a timeline of key events.

It is important that you do not seek out information that could harm your physical or mental health.

If you are struggling to find a third party to support with your application, then please contact the SHU Progress team as we may be able to help with this.

Other financial support

Care Leavers

Care Leavers are also eligible for a  £2000  Higher Education Bursary which is paid from their Local Authority – this is statutory. Your local authority may also provide you with a weekly allowance or contribute towards your accommodation costs. Please speak to your personal advisor about this. We would recommend that if your Local Authority agree to give you additional support you get this in writing in case your worker changes.

You may be eligible for SHU’s Care Leaver Package of £3,600 per academic year – more information on this can be found here.

Estranged Students

As an estranged student, you may also be eligible for a payment of £2,100 from the SHU Student Success Scholarship which you can apply for once you have enrolled at the university. More information on this can be found here. Please note, if you are eligible for the NHS Training Grant you will not be able to apply for the Student Success Scholarship.