During enrolment, we’ll ask you how you’re paying your tuition fees. It’s important to sort your fees payments as soon as possible and we’ve made it even easier to spread any payments across the year.
Student Finance for Home Students
If you’re using a student loan to pay your fees, make sure your student finance arrangements are in place and provide the details when you enrol. Ideally, your application for a tuition fee loan and maintenance loan (if you're applying for both) will already be approved. But if not, it’s still possible to apply or to contact Student Finance England (SFE) if your circumstances have changed.
You can even try to work out just how much you will receive from Student Finance England if you take out a maintenance loan. If you know how much your student loan will be, you know how much you have to spend! Check out the student finance calculator online.
Undergraduate Students:
If you’re an undergraduate, your tuition fee loan is paid directly to us by Student Finance England. The payments are made in three instalments across the year, so you don’t need to worry about arranging payments yourself, as long as your loan is approved and you’re fully enrolled and attending your course. Just make sure your student finance application is sorted before you enrol, and we’ll handle the rest.
Postgraduate Students:
If you’re a postgraduate student receiving a Postgraduate Master’s Loan, it works a little differently. Student Finance England will pay your loan directly to you in three instalments throughout the year. You’ll then be responsible for making sure your tuition fees are paid to BCU from these payments, so it's a good idea to budget carefully and plan ahead for when your fees are due.
Additional Support
- If you have any questions or concerns about your funding, our Student Finance Team is here to help.
- Don’t delay - late applications to Student Finance may cause delays in your funding and registration.
Need more help?
You can also find answers to common questions on our FAQs for Student Finance England | Birmingham City University
Self-funded
If you’re self-funded, we’ll send you an invoice to your BCU email address. Once you’ve received this, you can either pay your fees online or set up an instalment plan to spread the cost across the year using the BCU student invoice payment portal.
Log in to the invoice payment portal
You’ll have to set up a card payment plan for your invoice, and the payments will be made automatically on the due date.
Tuition Fee Payment Policy
Find out more about payment options and deadlines in our Tuition Fee Payment Policy, which you can find in the Student Contract.
International students
International students are required to pay 50 per cent of your tuition fees as part of your CAS /enrolment. The remaining 50 per cent of your tuition fee balance can be either paid in full on receipt of your invoice, or you can enter into a three instalment plan which is a payment each semester or you can make multiple payments as long you meet these thresholds.
- Semester 1 60% fees paid
- Semester 2 80% fees paid
- Semester 3 100% fees paid
We only have 2 payment methods both approve by our partner Flywire. We do not take cash or card payments on campus, and we do not employ or encourage payments made through any 3rd parties. You should not share any log in details with anyone. These are the payment methods for paying your course fees, which you can see in our International section.
Options for international fees
Sponsorship
If your fees are being paid by a sponsor, you’ll need to provide a letter from your approved sponsor during enrolment. Your sponsor letter must:
- Be on the sponsor’s official letterhead
- Clearly state the full student name
- Include your student number
- Include the sponsored amount or the proportion of the fees sponsored
- Provide the academic years for sponsorship (clearly stated if multiple years)
- Provide details of the course or programme
- Provide full details of where the invoice should be sent, including Sponsor contact name, details, postal address and e-mail address
- Be signed by the person authorising the sponsorship
- Provide any reference number or purchase order for the organisation sponsoring
- Meet the requirements of the apprenticeship contract
Money management and budgeting
Have you ever paid rent before? Ever done the weekly food shop? How much does a four-pack of Heinz baked beans cost?
Budgeting is huge before, during and even after university. Getting a budget in place early and forecasting your spending will make your time much easier, so you’re not scraping by at the end of each month.
We’ve even put together a helpful little budgeting calculator, so you don’t need to create one yourself.
Help with money worries
Our Money Advice and Childcare team is on hand to help you with any worries you might have about finances. The team can help with everything from Student Finance to accessing welfare benefits and childcare support. If you’re having money trouble the first thing to do is get in touch with the Student Support team for advice.