Are you worried about the costs of studying at college?
**** APPLICATIONS ARE NOW OPEN FOR RETURNING STUDENTS FOR ACADEMIC YEAR 2025/26 ***********
Apply for a College Bursary
The bursary fund aims to help students with the essential costs of participating in their study programme and therefore make education accessible for all. At St Brendan’s, the 16-19 bursary can provide support with travel costs, course specific kits/ mandatory trips and college meals, supporting families on lower incomes.
Students will need to do a new application for each academic year. Year 12 students will be invited to apply for the next academic year after May Half term, so approved bursaries are in place for September. Applications from new enrolling students are given priority during September.
Who can apply?
If you have a need for bursary support and your parents/carers household income is less than £30000 per year (net) or they are out of work, you could qualify. By net income we mean the amount earned after tax, national insurance and pension has been deducted.
We accept applications where:
- Parents/carers are employed/self-employed and receive top up benefits. We will add benefits and net salary together to obtain a total household income. We welcome applications from households where the total household income is £30000 net per annum or lower.
For households that receive Universal Credit, we will base our calculation on an average of the last 3 months Universal credit statements. This average will then be multiplied by 4 to give an annual total household income figure.
For most households receiving Universal Credit we will undertake the following calculation to establish total household income:
Universal Credit award amount minus housing entitlement amount (showing on the first part of the statement) plus total earnings reported on the Universal Credit statement.
This formula will be adjusted if rent is paid directly to the landlord as part of the calculation.
Where there is no housing entitlement showing on the Universal Credit statement, we will add Universal credit award amount to net salary to obtain a household income figure.
- Parent /carers are not working and are in receipt of non-working benefits such as Income Support / Job Seekers Allowance / Universal Credit.
- Parents/carers are employed or self-employed and total household income from take home pay is less than £30000 after deductions, but no top up benefits are being claimed.
- Students that are in care or care leavers.
What can I get help with?
- Free Bus travel from primary address within the Bristol and West of England area for addresses more than 1.5 miles away from college.
- Help with compulsory course kits for subjects such as Art, Design, Textiles, Maths & Photography.
- A printing allocation for certain subjects such as Fine Art, Photography, Product Design and Graphics where printing is deemed an essential requirement.
- Payment of compulsory trips.
- A daily meal allocation to be used in the college cafes (terms & conditions apply).
Please note: Awards can be affected if attendance goes below 85%.
How to apply
New Students will be able to apply after they have enrolled at college in late August/early September and have a live profile on our system (please allow a few hours after enrolment for the profile to be set up).
At the start of the new academic year, we are very busy assessing applications and there will be delays. Get your application in as soon as possible after enrolment along with ALL the requested documentation so that you are at the front of the queue. Applications are dealt with strictly in date order.
Existing students can apply at any time in the academic year.
All applications need to be submitted online using PayMyStudent. To create an account, students will need their Student email address. The link to apply is as follows:
https://stbrendans.paymystudent.com/portal/
Students will need to provide some basic details confirming who lives at their primary address and will be asked to upload some documents providing details of household income. The documents that we need to see will depend on what type of income your family receives.
What documents do I need to apply?
This does vary depending on individual household circumstances. The PayMyStudent system will prompt you to upload the documents that we need to see.
If your parents/carers receive any of the following benefits we will need to see all pages of their most recent award letter. The document provided needs to be dated within the last year.
- Income Support
- Employment Support Allowance (income based)
- Jobseekers Allowance (income based)
- Pension Credit
If your parents/carers are in receipt of Child Tax Credit and or Working Tax credit we will need:
- The latest Tax Credit award letter. This must be dated April 2025 or later. ALL pages must be provided. If only partial pages are uploaded, this is likely to delay your application. An example of a Tax Credit letter can be seen below.
- We may also need to see the latest P60(s) - this will depend on household income levels.
If your parents/carers are in receipt of Universal Credit you need to provide their last 3 monthly statements. We need to see the actual statements from start to end and not just the summary of payments.
If your parents receive Universal Credit but also work, we will not need to see any other documents other than the Universal Credit statements as the Universal Credit statement confirms the level of household income.
In order to obtain the statements you will need to:
- Log in to your Universal Credit online account
- Go to ‘Payments’
- Click on the statement dates for the last 3 months and save each statement as a pdf.
A guide showing how to access a Universal Credit statement can be found by scrolling to the bottom of this page.
IMPORTANT:
Please submit Universal Credit statements in PDF format.
If you are unable to do this we can accept screenshots in exceptional circumstances however please ensure all information is captured within 3 screenshots per monthly statement. The information we need to see can be found in the image below.
A lot of applications are held up when only part of the Universal Credit statements are uploaded. Please ensure you have provided details of all financial information within the statements and there are no gaps in the information provided.
We need to have 3 months complete statements even if all payments are the same. An example of what we need is shown below:
If your household does not claim benefits but has an income below £30000 (after tax, national insurance and pension) we will ask you to upload the following documents for all adults in the household:
- Last 3 months full bank statements showing all transactions.
- Last 3 months payslips.
- Latest P60
- If self-employed we will need HMRC confirmation of income level in the form of SA302’s /Tax returns.
We may also on occasion request a council tax bill to confirm number of adults in a household in certain circumstances.
Bursary for Vulnerable Groups
We also offer bursary support for students in defined vulnerable groups. Government guidance can be viewed by copying and pasting this link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/16-to-19-bursary-fund-guidance/16-to-19-bursary-fund-guide-2025-to-2026
We will ask for confirmation of care status from your social worker and will also ask for a short questionnaire to be completed along with one month personal bank statements. Much like the discretionary bursary we need to show that there is a need for bursary help. Subject to there being a need for financial support, funding of up to £1200 may be available to be used towards the essential costs in participating in your study programme.
Students that received Pupil Premium at Secondary School
If you received Pupil Premium at secondary school, it is worth looking at our bursary policy to see if your household meets our criteria.
- If you don’t meet the criteria but received free meals at secondary school, we can provide you with a free meal entitlement at college if you can upload/email a letter from your secondary school or local authority confirming that you received free school meals. You will still need to submit a bursary application but we just need a letter from the secondary school or local authority confirming your free meal entitlement.
- If you do meet bursary criteria, you will need to submit an application and provide the documents requested in the paymystudent application. Please note that we may still need to see proof of your free meal entitlement depending on your current household circumstances. Please make us aware that you received free meals within the notes section of the Paymystudent application so that this can be taken into consideration.
Other information
All bursary awards are dependent on students adhering to the Positive behaviour management policy, the student attendance and punctuality policy and the student learner agreement.
All bursary awards are subject to a student meeting 85% attendance. Bursary support will be affected if attendance goes below 85%. Mandatory trips and items may not be covered and if eligible for a bus ticket, this will be reviewed.
If you have any questions or need any help with your online application form please email:
