Cambridge Bursary poster
Students with a household income of up to £62,215 are eligible for some support as long as you share financial assessment information with the College via a student loan application.

This page is part of the offer-holders section for students who have been offered an undergraduate place at Christ's College and contains financial information for students with Home fee status starting a course in October 2024. Please read it alongside your offer letter.

 

Student Loan applications

As a Home student, you do not need to pay the tuition fees up front or during the time you are a student at Christ's and you can get support for your living costs. The student loans companies for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland provide tuition fee loans (they pay the tuition fees directly to the College each term), as well as maintenance loans for living costs. You will need to check arrangements for student loans and repayment on the relevant website for your area (once updated for the 2024-25 academic year), pay attention to when applications open, and make your application by the relevant deadline. 

If you do not plan to apply for a loan, please see the information below. 

Information for completing your student finance application: 

  • If you are not sure of the length of your course, we advise you to quote the longer period, as this can be reduced later. This is likely to apply to students in Chemical Engineering, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, and Natural Sciences where there is a possible extra fourth year (see your offer letter and read both the 'course duration' in the table and any sentences below the table but above where it says 'terms and conditions'). Medicine students normally apply for a six-year course. 
     
  • When completing the online form, please ensure that your choose the College name, i.e. ‘Christ’s College – University of Cambridge’ from the drop down list, not just the University of Cambridge. The correct College address is St Andrew's Street, Cambridge CB2 3BU, not Trinity Lane CB2 1TN.
     
  • When applying for your student finance you share your household income information with the College so if eligible, you will automatically be awarded a Cambridge Bursary (all household incomes under £62,215 are eligible for some non-repayable support).
     
  • Please also bear in mind that you will need to apply each year for your loan. 

Students who are resident in England: 

  • Please read about student finance on the UK.Gov website. In particular, see the information for new full time students and the eligibility information. You can use the student finance calculator to estimate your loan. Then, read about how to apply, and apply online. We recommend that you apply as soon as possible once applications are open for the 2024-25 academic year, as it can take some time for your application to be processed. 
  • If you have any questions about applying for student finance, please contact Student Finance England directly. 
  • Once your receive confirmation of your loan, you do not need to send anything to us at Christ's. We are able to see information directly from Student Finance England to confirm that you will receive a loan (this is the evidence we need for the 30 June financial deadline). Please note that although we see that you have completed an application, we do not see your financial assessment information unless you have agreed to share it with the College in the application. Only students who have shared the financial assessment information will be assessed for a Cambridge Bursary, so please double-check this if your household income is £62,215 or less.

Students who are resident in Scotland:

  • On the Student Awards Agency for Scotland website, there is a section for students and a funding calculator/eligibility information. We recommend that you apply as soon as possible once applications are open for the 2024-25 academic year, as it can take some time for your application to be processed. 
  • If you have any questions, please contact the Student Awards Agency Scotland directly. 
  • Once your receive confirmation of your loan, please send a copy of the document confirming this to admissions@christs.cam.ac.uk by 30 June in the year you are due to start the course, as in the case of the Student Awards Agency for Scotland, we do not receive confirmation of your application directly. Please also ensure that you have shared your financial assessment information with the College. Only students who have shared the financial assessment information will be assessed for a Cambridge Bursary, so please double-check this if your household income is £62,215 or less.

Students who are resident in Wales:

  • On the Student Finance Wales website, you can sign up for an email when 2024 entry applications are launched. Please also read the information here and follow the links.
  • If you have any questions, please contact Student Finance Wales directly. 
  • Once your receive confirmation of your loan, you do not need to send anything to us at Christ's. We are able to see information directly from Student Finance Wales to confirm that you will receive a loan. This is the evidence we need for the 30 June financial deadline. Please note that although we see that you have completed an application, we do not see your financial assessment information unless you have agreed to share it with the College in the application. Only students who have shared the financial assessment information will be assessed for a Cambridge Bursary, so please double-check this if your household income is £62,215 or less.

Students who are resident in Northern Ireland: 

  • On the StudentFinanceNI website please read the information here and follow the links. We recommend that you apply as soon as possible once applications are open for the 2024-25 academic year, as it can take some time for your application to be processed. 
  • Students from Northern Ireland need to agree specifically to share your information with Cambridge. There is a tick-box within the application form that you need to tick for this.
  • If you have any questions, please contact StudentFinanceNI directly. 
  • Once your receive confirmation of your loan, you do not need to send anything to us at Christ's as long as you ticked the box mentioned above to give permission for your information to be shared with us. We will be able to see the information, and this is the evidence we need for the 30 June financial deadline. Please note that although we see that you have completed an application, we do not see your financial assessment information unless you have agreed to share it with the College in the application. Only students who have shared the financial assessment information will be assessed for a Cambridge Bursary, so please double-check this if your household income is £62,215 or less.
     

Students who will not apply for a student loan

If you are not planning to apply for a student loan, please first of all make sure that you are aware of the information about Cambridge Bursary eligibility in the section on the Cambridge Bursary scheme below. Only students who apply for student finance can be awarded a Cambridge Bursary (annual amount awarded on a sliding scale for household incomes of up to £62,215).

If you do not plan to apply for a loan, then you will need to download and complete a fee status form and upload it along with the accompanying documents. Here are the steps to follow:

STEP 1: Download and complete the Fee Status Form below:

STEP 2: The form asks you to attach multiple documents, including your passport, evidence of your residency since September 2021 etc. Please read the form thoroughly to ensure that you have understood all of the documents that are needed, make a list of what you need and collect the documents.

STEP 3: Please save your fee status form and documents as ONE pdf file containing the complete form FOLLOWED BY your evidence documents.

STEP 4: Please save your pdf on your computer with the file name in this specific format:

  • 7 - Fee Status Form and documents - SURNAME First name - Subject - UCAS Personal ID (with no dashes)

Here's an example: for the fictional for example, for the fictional Martina RODRIGUEZ holding an offer for Natural Sciences (Biological), the file name might be:

  • 7 - Fee Status Form and documents - RODRIGUEZ Martina - Natural Sciences (Biological) - 1093844382

Note that there is a space before and after each hypen, and there is a number at the beginning.

STEP 5: Please open the file on your computer and check that it is legible and that the pages are in the right order.

STEP 6: Please then complete the following upload tool, which includes a question that allows you to upload your pdf. Please make sure that you see the confirmation screen once you have clicked on submit form.

 

Cambridge Bursary Scheme

If you are a Home fee status student with a household income of below £62,215 then you are likely to be eligible for a Cambridge Bursary of up to £3,500 per year. The exact amount that you are eligible for will depend on your household income, as there is a sliding scale.

You must apply for financial assistance through your own regional Student Finance body (see above) which includes sharing your household information with the College in order to be eligible for a Cambridge Bursary. There is no separate application process (eligible students whose financial assessment information we have access to will automatically be awarded a Bursary). You do not need to take up any loans that are offered, but you must go through the application and income assessment process and ensure that we can see the information in order for the Cambridge Bursary to be awarded.

In addition to the Cambridge Bursary, students who have been eligible for free school meals (funded by your local authority) will receive the Educational Premium, which is an additional non-repayable bursary of £1000 per year. If you are eligible for free school meals, we asked you to send a document about this either during the application process (for those who applied directly to Christ's) or as one of the catch up documents (for those who got a place via the pool) so we already have this.

Please see the 2023 entry information on the Cambridge Bursary website. The Cambridge Bursary website will be updated for 2024 entry (much) nearer the time.

Further information

Top up bursaries for students from Scotland and Northern Ireland

Please see the relevant information:

There is no separate application process for these top-up bursaries, but you must complete a student loan application and ensure that you are eligible for a Cambridge Bursary.

 

Christ's Awards

Once you have started your course at Christ's, small grants will be available to cover a range of activities once you have started your course:

Language Centre staff
Cambridge University Language Programmes
  • Vacation Stays
  • Books and Study Aids
  • Language courses
  • Dissertation research
  • Lab work
  • Summer internships
  • Travel
  • Hardship
  • Extracurricular activities
    e.g. sports, music, theatre, art

Further information about these awards, including how to apply, will be made available after you have started your course at Christ's. 
 

Other Awards

  • If you are from the West Midlands, please see the additional information about the OCR Bursary Scheme. Action is required (you will need to complete a form) to apply for one of these bursaries. The areas in the West Midlands are Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley, Hereford, Sandwell, Shropshire, Solihull, Staffordshire, Walsall, Warwickshire, Wolverhampton, and Worcestershire.
     
  • There are normally a small number of quite specific university-wide Outreach Scholarships for students from underrepresented groups though details can change from year to year. Each year we send details of the available outreach scholarships to students about to start their course shortly after places are confirmed in August. If you are eligible for one of these, you will need to complete a form at that stage, so please look out for our email towards the end of August. 
     
  • If you have an impairment, health condition (including a mental health condition), or Specific Learning Difficulty like dyslexia, you may be eligible for a Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) or Reasonable Adustments Fund for help with the costs of equipment, travel or specialist ergonomic equipment, depending on your case. Please see the further information on the Disability Resource Centre website. 
     
  • If you are holding an offer and have spent time in Local Authority Care then you may be eligible for additional financial support. Please email us for further information if you think that this may apply to you, and we will then send you further information. 
     

Back to offer holders section / Back to Financial Info page / Dates and deadlines for offer holders

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