Financial support for Refugee and Asylum Seeking Students

What financial support is available for Refugee and Asylum seeking students in higher education?

LEAPS are here to help you understand what financial support is available. You can call or email our named contact for Refugee students, Keith Barbour, if you have any questions or concerns. You can reach Keith at leaps@ed.ac.uk or by phone (see details on our contact us page).

Refugees

If you plan to begin an HNC, HND or a university degree, you should apply to the Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) to help fund your studies. It is recommended that you complete an application to SAAS between April and the end of June in the year you plan to begin your studies.

If the Home Office has granted you refugee status, Humanitarian Protection (HP) or Discretionary Leave (DL), and you have been ordinarily resident in the UK since the Home Office granted you status and you are ordinarily resident in Scotland on the relevant date, you can apply for:

A funding package of tuition fees. As long as you apply on time and provide the relevant info, SAAS will cover the cost of your tuition fees for each year of study.
An optional loan of up to between £8,400 and £9,400 depending on household income. This loan must be repaid, but only after you have graduated and are earning enough money to pay it back.
You may also be entitled to a bursary depending on your household income. If you are eligible for this, you don’t need to pay this money back and should be eligible to receive it every year of your studies.
More information about this is available here: https://www.saas.gov.uk/full-time/funding-information-undergraduate/funding

You need to apply to SAAS each year of your university or college course. More information about the eligibility criteria for Refugees can be found here: https://www.saas.gov.uk/guides/residence-non-eea-nationals/asylum-seekers-granted-in-the-uk

Asylum Seekers

You are eligible to apply for SAAS to cover the cost of your tuition fees, if the following conditions apply:

If you are a young asylum seeker you must meet all of the following conditions: you are the child of an asylum seeker or a young asylum seeker
you were under the age of 18 on the date when the application for asylum was made
you are living in Scotland on the relevant date

More information is available here: https://www.saas.gov.uk/guides/residence-non-eea-nationals/asylum-seekers-granted-in-the-uk

Unfortunately, you are not able to apply for living cost support from SAAS until you are granted refugee status, Discretionary Leave or Humanitarian Protection, or another form of leave to enter/remain in the UK. There are a small number of Sanctuary Scholarships that Asylum Seekers can apply for. These are provided by some UK universities and can cover tuition fees, living cost support and sometimes even accommodation. You can search for these scholarships using the Student Action for Refugees Scholarship Search tool linked at the bottom of this page.

Scholarships, bursaries and other financial support

You may also be eligible for other financial support in the form of bursaries or scholarships – this is money that does not have to be paid back and is available from universities and colleges. The number of bursaries and scholarships and application processes vary between different organisations, so it’s worth spending some time searching on university and/or college websites to see what financial support might be available to you

You can also contact student services at individual institutions to talk through your situation, get more information and find out what support is available. You can access a list of some of the contacts for Refugee students at universities across the UK here but please let us know if you need any more guidance on this.

Student Action for Refugees has a great scholarship search tool available on their website. You can filter by region and immigration status: https://star-network.org.uk/access-to-university/scholarships/list/