1. Working out your income

If you have student income (a student loan for maintenance and grants paid to you for your course), it usually counts as income for universal credit (UC).1Reg 66(1)(e) UC Regs This chapter explains how much monthly income counts in the assessment.

Note: you do not count as having student income if you are no longer ‘receiving education’ (see here).2Reg 68(1) UC Regs So if you have left or finished your course and you get a payment of student income, it is disregarded. Note also that one-off, lump-sum payments of student income count as capital (see here).

Steps	Actions
Step 1	Add together the annual income from grants and loans. Add the annual amount of any grants, ignoring those that are disregarded, to the annual amount of any loan (see below).
Step 2	Work out the period over which your student income counts. Calculate this from the month in which you start your course until the month before the summer vacation, or end of your course, as applicable (see here).
Step 3	Divide income throughout the year. Divide the amount in Step 1 by the number of months over which your student income counts for that year (see here).
Step 4	Deduct disregard. Deduct a set amount of £110 from the monthly amount of income from grants and loan.
Step 5	Add other income to the monthly amount. Add any other income taken into account (eg, earnings) to the monthly amount of your grant and loan. This, added to the total at Step 4, is the amount of income used in the UC assessment.

 

1     Reg 66(1)(e) UC Regs »

2     Reg 68(1) UC Regs »