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Eligible students must be:

• enrolled on your course
• a Home student (assessed by your funding provider)
• approved for all funding you are eligible for (Tuition Fee Loan; means-tested Maintenance Loan; additional grants; Social Work Bursary)
• able to evidence that you have sufficient funds to cover the total of your Tuition Fees, if you are not entitled to funding from your funding provider (e.g. previous study; or Equivalent Level Qualification). You must also have a payment plan in place for your fees, be up-to-date with your payments and not in debt to ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÉç
• approved for your student funding if you are resitting block study. But this Fund can't help with the shortfall of Maintenance Loan. If you are eligible for an award, the amount will be determined by the number of blocks you are resitting, e.g. resitting 2 blocks would be a 50% award.

Students are not eligible if:

• the degree you are studying does not attract national funding from Student Finance England (or equivalent). Examples of these courses are: Art and Design (Foundation Studies); BTEC Diploma Preparation for Social Work; Transition to pre-registration Nursing Professional; Knowledge Module for Community Justice
• you have a tuition fee debt (or other debt) owed to ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÉç
• you are studying at a partnership college/ institution. Please contact your college/ institution for advice and support.

• Care experienced: if you have been in care at some point in your life
• Disability/medical condition that prevents you from working part time
• DSA laptop shortfall
• Future rent deposit for next academic year
• Gender affirming care: for costs incurred to align gender identity with physical characteristics and social presentation
• High rent and energy bills/ high mortgage and energy bills
• High travel costs (from term-time address to ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÉç campus)
• Registered childcare costs
• Repeat prescription costs
• Students with children (who live with them and are under 18 years old)
• Students who don’t qualify for the maximum funding due to household income (living away from home only).

ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÉç Support Fund 2026/27 is due to open on 12 October 2026

If you are eligible to apply, enrolled students need to set up an account with first – you can register for free with your ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÉç email address.

Missing evidence is the main reason why assessments are delayed. Help us to help you, by supplying all the required evidence from the start.

You will need to upload your evidence within the online application form. You don't need to complete it all in one go.

Once you have submitted your application, you will not be able to submit additional evidence until we have checked your evidence. You will also not be able to submit another application until we have completed your assessment.

You will be required to complete learning pathways within Blackbullion’s learning platform. We will allocate the pathways to you (after you have submitted your application).

Please ensure you check your ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÉç emails and your Blackbullion account regularly.

As long as you have provided all the required evidence and only AFTER you have completed the allocated pathways, we will aim to assess your application within four working weeks.

If you are eligible for an award, you may need to allow a bit longer to receive the payment. Dates when ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÉç is closed (e.g. Christmas and Easter) do not form part of the turnaround time.

If an assessor contacts you to ask for clarification or for further evidence, it may take longer for your application to be assessed. We will aim to continue with the assessment as soon as we can after receiving the additional information.

You can check the status on your application page, within your Blackbullion account. Please avoid contacting us to check on the progress of your application until the four-working weeks have passed, unless you have a change of circumstances. The time spent investigating these enquiries stops the assessors from working on assessments.

If you need advice on completing your application form, obtaining your supporting evidence, or on any issues relating to your student finance, please contact ºÚÁϸ£ÀûÉç Money Advice:

Tel: 0116 257 7595 (select option 3, then option 3 again)

Email: moneyadvice@dmu.ac.uk

We follow set criteria to ensure all students are assessed equally. If you want to find out how you were assessed, please contact us. We will book you in for an appointment, please don't book this yourself, as we need to ensure we book the appointment with the assessor, who can provide you with the information.

If your circumstances have changed since your assessment and you are able to provide evidence to support this, the assessor will determine whether to re-assess your application or not, or advise that you re-apply. If there is no additional evidence, or you are querying an outcome that used our set criteria, the original decision will remain the same.