The College is offering four bursary schemes to enrolled students for the 2022/23 academic year, offering assistance with kits and other materials, travel to College, uniforms, college trips, etc.
To view the Bursary Policy please click here.
Once you have enrolled, please go to our online bursary portal where you can register for and apply for a bursary.
If you want to apply for a bursary, you will need to apply for each academic year you are in college.
If you have been approved a bursary and are entitled to Free College Meals then this will be added as a credit onto your Student ID card if you are going to the Ipswich Campus or Suffolk Rural.
There are currently no canteen facilities at Leiston or Halesworth but this may change in due course, at the moment students going here to study will have Free College Meal money paid into their bank account every half term to help them buy food from the college.
It can be spent on anything in the canteen at Ipswich Campus or Suffolk Rural. This includes meals, sweets or drinks up to the value of £3.50 per day you are in college.
The bursaries cannot normally be used to pay tuition fees.
For more information about tuition fees please click here.
If you are a young parent, aged under 20 (as of 31 August in the year in which the course starts), you can apply for a Government ‘Care to Learn’ grant.
The grant pays childcare of up to £160 per child per week, plus travel-related costs whilst you are learning.
Please visit their website (http://www.gov.uk/care-to-learn) for more information and to apply, or call the Care to Learn helpline on 0800 121 8989.
Advanced Learner Loans are funded by the government and give individuals aged 19 or over a way to gain a level 3 to 6 qualification without paying a lump sum or any initial upfront costs.
Please contact student support either in person or you can call them on 01473 382738.
You will need to register on the left-hand side of the screen first, and then once you are registered you can log in on the right-hand side of the screen.
Please note if you are uploading a Universal Credit statement from your online account then we will need to see the whole statement for the relevant month (any month within the last 3 months) showing all of the deductions, breakdown and final total. Please send all of this information from the very top of the statement to the very bottom. Doing so will avoid any delays in assessing your bursary and letting you know an outcome.
If you are a catering, hairdressing or beauty student, please see your tutor for an order form ASAP. This needs to be filled out with your name, student number and any sizes. This can then be uploaded to your bursary account, or handed into Finance for us to process. Please allow 2 weeks after handing it in to allow the supplier time to process the order.
If you have been awarded a payment for trips you do not need to do anything as this will automatically be paid to the College on your behalf. If you have paid for a trip prior to being accepted for a bursary this will be refunded to you.
If you are entitled to free College meals, these will be added to your College ID card on a weekly basis. You will get £3.50 for every day that you are timetabled to be in College to spend that week. These payments are reset every Friday, so you will lose the entitlement if you don’t claim them that week.
Students may get different amounts of hardship to other students throughout the year. This is nothing unusual, as each student is assessed on their individual needs and circumstances, and payments will reflect this.
Bursary applications should normally be processed in a few days (assuming that all of the evidence required has been received). Please allow up to 14 days after submission of your bursary before you contact us as we are processing them in date order.
If the student disagrees with the outcome of the bursary process, or if the student feels that the College has not taken into account the particular circumstances of the student’s case, then the student has the right to appeal.
Any appeal must be made via email to bursaryappeal@suffolk.ac.uk
The student will receive a written outcome within 28 days of the date the appeal is received and acknowledged by the college. If any further information is needed in order for the investigation into the appeal to be completed, further contact will be made via email.
If you have applied for a bursary please be patient, you will contacted via email in due course in regards to the outcome at the email address you provided when you filled in your application form for a bursary.
If you see this it means that the password is incorrect. If you need to reset your password, click on “forgotten password” link which is found underneath the section where you log into your account.
(If you have any issues after this make sure you are using Chrome or Edge as it sometimes does not like Internet Explorer.)
It depends on what you have been awarded. Please check on the email that was sent to the email address that you used when registering for a bursary.
If you have been awarded a payment for materials, books, kits or uniforms and you are not a catering, hairdressing or beauty student, please confirm with your tutor before purchasing it yourself as in some instances these may be purchased on your behalf. If this is the case then the money will be transferred directly from Finance and paid internally to fund these items, so you do not need to do anything.
If you do purchase any of these items please upload your receipts or hand into Finance and we will then refund you up to the allowance shown on your bursary award letter.
The payment dates for your hardship is usually 3 working days after the “due date” if you are looking on your bursary payment screen.
Please also make sure you filled in your correct bank details on your application. These must be in the student’s name ONLY. The only exception to this is if the parent/guardian has power of attorney, which we will need to see a copy of.
Hardship payments this year will be made every half term. Payments are scheduled to come out just before the new half-term starts, and should hit students bank accounts on the Friday before they are due to come back to college.
The payment run will be processed so you will receive your first hardship payment on 1st September 2022 if your bursary is approved before this date.
These are all of the Hardship payment dates for the 2022-23 academic year and are paid every half term :-
1st September 2022
28th October 2022
30th December 2022
17th February 2023
14th April 2023
2nd June 2023
You will receive an e-mail notifying you of the outcome of your bursary application, the email we will use will be the same one you provided when you applied for your bursary. If you wish to change this, please contact student support in person or call them on 01473 382738.
If you applied for your bursary and submitted the correct evidence before the October half term and if the bursary is approved it will be back dated to the beginning of the year, any payments due will be paid.
If however, you apply and submit evidence after the October half term, the bursary hardship will not be backdated and payments will only be made from the date you submitted all the correct evidence.
