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Household income assessment without taking a loan

You do not need to take out a Student Finance loan to have your household income assessed for bursary purposes.

You might not want to take out Student Finance loans to fund your study for religious or personal reasons.

However, if you are a UK or EU undergraduate student with a household income below £42,875 you may still be able to receive the UCL Undergraduate Bursary. To claim this, you will need to have your household income (HHI) assessed by Student Finance.

You will need to submit a loan application to Student Finance and pass their eligibility checks. However, you will be able to specify you want a loan for £0 so you won’t borrow any money.

Student Finance can then carry out the HHI assessment and the outcome will be shared with UCL. UCL will then calculate the amount of bursary you can receive based on the HHI. Information on possible bursary amounts can be found on the UCL Undergraduate Bursary  page.

To do this (UK students only):

  1. Create an online Student Finance account and select that you would like to apply for a maintenance loan. Follow the steps of the application as if you were applying for the loan and provide all the necessary information.
  2. When asked ‘Do you want to apply for the higher amount of Maintenance Loan? select ‘Yes, I want to apply for a higher amount of Maintenance Loan’. This lets Student Finance know to assess your household income.
  3. Later, when asked ‘How much Maintenance Loan do you want to borrow?’ select ‘I want to borrow a specific amount’.
  4. When you are asked to input the amount, type ‘0’. This lets Student Finance know that you are not taking out any loan.

When you have completed the application, your parents or partner will be asked to submit their household income information.

This information is then sent to UCL who will automatically assess you for the bursary and generate payment if you are eligible.

You must not cancel your Student Finance application as this will lead to your UCL Undergraduate Bursary entitlement being withdrawn.

You must also provide your bank details on your Student Finance application. This is because the bursary is paid via the Student Loan Company’s payment portal. Any student with incomplete bank details will not receive payment of the UCL Undergraduate Bursary. 

Students with EU fee status should contact the Student Funding team via AskUCL for details of the process they should follow.

Current Year Income Assessments (CYI)

When doing the HHI assessment, Student Finance will assess your household income for the tax year before last. If your HHI has gone down by 15% or more since then, you can let Student Finance know via a Current Year Income assessment (CYI). Information CYIs can be found here.