Financial Assistance Fund

If you do struggle with money at university, we'll be there to help. Our Financial Assistance Fund is intended to help students experiencing financial difficulties and stop money worries impacting their studies.

The University’s Financial Assistance Fund is intended to help students experiencing financial difficulties due to a shortfall in funding, which is impacting on their success and/or progression at the University. The Fund consists of a sum of money, which has been made available to support as many eligible students as possible, who are engaged and committed to their studies, in achieving a positive outcome from their time with us.

Who can apply?

To be eligible for consideration for an award from the Fund you must be:

• a fully enrolled student of Birmingham City University; and

• from a priority group as defined by the University or, if from outside of the priority groups, have exceptional or emergency circumstances; and

• able to demonstrate a shortfall in funding impacting on your success and/or progression; and

• have a minimum of four weeks remaining on your course at the point of application to the Fund, if you are in your final year.

You must have applied for all funding available to you and received your first payment before making an application to the Fund i.e. Student Finance England, Postgraduate Loan, welfare benefits etc.

Applications are open to fully enrolled home and international students of the University following an undergraduate or postgraduate course.

How to apply

An eligibility, application and assessment process applies and is updated each academic year. As part of the application process, an assessment of your income and expenditure will be carried out. 

The Financial Assistance Fund for the academic year 2022/23 is now closed. 

For current students experiencing financial difficulties, please contact our Student Support team by logging an enquiry via iAsk.

More information

The details of the Fund provided on the Fund webpages are for information only. You must refer to the Financial Assistance Fund Guidelines for full details of the Fund and its terms and conditions. It is important that you understand that by accepting any payment from the Fund, whether monetary or in any other form, you will be indicating your acceptance of the terms associated with the Fund, set out in the Financial Assistance Fund Guidelines and will be entering a contract with the University.  You should be aware that there are certain circumstances where the University has the right to require the return of any payments made to you from the Fund. 

Download the Financial Assistance Fund Guidelines