Bursary & Scholarship Impact Calculator

Your total student finance package combines several elements. There is the tuition fee loan, worth up to £9,790 for 2026/27 and paid directly to the university, the maintenance loan, which is means-tested and paid to you, and any grants or bursaries you qualify for. Some students also receive Disabled Students' Allowances or a Childcare Grant. Tuition fee loans are not means-tested and cover up to the full fee, whereas maintenance loans depend on household income, and extra grants such as the Parents' Learning Allowance or the Adult Dependants' Grant carry their own eligibility rules.

Enter your household income, dependants status and study details, and each component appears separately alongside the total finance available, split between what arrives as a loan to be repaid and what is a grant you keep. The tuition fee loan never reaches your bank account, since it goes straight to the university, which is why the cash figure is always smaller than the headline package.

For England on Plan 5, the maintenance loan runs to £14,135 in London, £10,830 outside London and £9,118 living at home. The full amount is paid up to a household income of £25,000, after which it tapers down to a basic rate that everyone receives whatever the household earns, worth £7,039 in London, £5,048 outside London and £4,013 at home. Northern Ireland pays a loan of up to £8,352 (£11,699 in London) plus a means-tested grant of up to £3,569. Scotland works differently through SAAS, combining a means-tested Young Students' Bursary of up to £2,000 with a student loan of up to £9,400, a total of up to £11,400 in 2026-27, and Wales offers up to £15,720 in total in London, £12,590 elsewhere and £10,685 living at home. Payments arrive termly into a student bank account.

How far the money goes depends mostly on rent. Halls cost £4,500 to £10,500 a year and private rent £4,000 to £9,000. Food takes £180 to £250 a month, bills £80 to £150, transport £40 to £100 and socialising £100 to £200, with books and equipment adding £200 to £400 a year. Living costs therefore land at £8,000 to £12,000 a year outside London and £10,000 to £14,000 in London, so the maintenance loan usually meets 60 to 90% of the bill and the remainder has to come from somewhere else.

Several awards sit on top of the loans, and none of them has to be repaid. Nursing, midwifery and allied health students in England get the NHS Learning Support Fund, a £5,000 a year training grant, with extra payments for specialist subjects, parents and hardship. Medical and dental students move onto the NHS Bursary in later years, worth up to £3,447 a year means-tested in London plus a £1,081 grant. Disabled Students' Allowance covers equipment and support up to £27,783 a year. Care leavers have a separate package worth up to £14,000. University hardship funds are discretionary and pay £500 to £5,000, and merit-based scholarships typically run at £500 to £3,000 a year.

Term-time work is generally capped at 20 hours a week, which is also the restriction on most international student visas. Tutoring pays best at £25 to £60 an hour, bar work brings £10 to £15 and Christmas retail £11 to £14, while campus jobs such as student ambassador or library work tend to flex around teaching. Full-time work from May to September brings in £4,000 to £8,000, and internships in finance or technology pay £18k to £35k pro rata. With the Personal Allowance at £12,570, most students pay no income tax on their earnings.

On the spending side, a student account from HSBC, Santander, Halifax or NatWest carries an interest-free overdraft of £1,000 to £3,000, and Monzo or Starling make tracking easier. Discount schemes such as UNiDAYS and Student Beans take 10 to 15% off retailers including Amazon, ASOS, Boohoo and Apple. A 16-25 Railcard costs £30 a year and takes a third off National Express, GWR and TfL fares, and a 16-25 ID card is £15 a year with several uses. Cooking in batches and self-catering rather than eating out saves £500 to £1,500 a year.