19 or over and a full-time student
If you are a full-time student aged 19 or over, whether in non-advanced or advanced education, you cannot usually get IS during your ‘period of study’, but there are exceptions.
1Reg 4ZA(2) IS Regs If you are aged 19 and in relevant education, you come under the rules
above.
Period of study
The
‘period of study’ starts on the first day of the course and ends on the last day of the course – ie, the last day of the final academic year.
2Regs 2(1), definition of ‘period of study’, and 61(1), definition of ‘last day of the course’, IS Regs It only ends earlier than this if you abandon your course or are dismissed from it, in which case it ends on the day that happens. You are within your period of study during all vacations and, for sandwich courses, during periods of work placements. In your first year, you do not count as a student at all until you first start attending or undertaking the course.
3Reg 61(2)(b) IS Regs So if the course has already begun, you are not excluded from IS as a student until the day you actually start.