A maintenance loan covers student living costs and varies in amount depending on personal circumstance, such as where you live and household income, and whether or not you are planning to live in accommodation. There is a website that you can find by searching ‘Student finance calculator GOV UK‘ that can give an estimate of how much a student could be entitled to across one academic year. Students have to re-apply for a maintenance loan each year for as long as the course is.
Specifically, a maintenance loan is ideally spent on things like accommodation, food, academic books / equipment, general costs like laundry, and leisure if you can afford it after spending on the essentials.
There are different types of loans and additional loan options depending on your course. There is such thing as a short course loan, as well as a long course loan which is added on top of your standard maintenance loan if you haven’t applied to a short course loan or are on a HESC (Higher Education Short Course).
A long course loan is only available to students on courses above 30 weeks and 3 days in duration and is impacted by household income, like the standard maintenance loan.
Household income, if you are below the age of 25, only includes your parent’s / carer’s total income before tax which means, in my case, if I do spend my gap year working full-time, my maintenance loan is not impacted by how much I earn and I can save that money or use small bits to add towards emergency spending during my time at university. The same would apply to a part-time job, including if I was to work weekends or work for the university part-time while on my course.
There are various different grants that could contribute towards living costs depending on whether or not you are eligible, or some universities offer grants depending on the reason behind needing a grant.
Applying for student finance is done through the government website and has to be done each year for as long as the course is.