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Applying for your Undergraduate Funding from the Student Loans Company

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If you are planning on financing your studies through the loans and grants available to you from the Student Loans Company, you should apply for funding from the funding body of the country where you are ordinarily resident.

To ensure that you are assessed properly for your funding for each year of your course, it is important that you apply for the correct course and year of study from the start. When applying for funding, you can use the UCAS course code for your chosen course.

For funding purposes most of our courses are set up as a standard 4-year programme consisting of three years of study and one optional placement year or a 5-year extended programme with foundation year, three years of study and one optional placement year.

The information below explains how to select the correct course for funding for the first year of your studies at Northumbria.

If you are enrolling onto a Foundation Year

If you are enrolling onto a foundation course and DO NOT know the undergraduate degree you will progress onto, you should apply for funding for foundation year of the 5-year extended foundation course. Although this is your first year of funding, it will be classed as year 0 (foundation year) with the Student Loans Company.

In your second year of study, if you will be progressing onto a linked undergraduate course, you would apply for funding for year 1 of the 5-year extended degree course.

For example, if you are planning to study the Accounting, Finance and Economics Foundation Year and do not know what undergraduate course you want to progress on to, you would apply for funding for foundation year of BSC (HONS) ACCOUNTING, FINANCE AND ECONOMICS 5YR EXTD.

If you are enrolling onto a foundation course and DO know that you want to progress to a linked undergraduate degree, you should apply for funding for foundation year of the 5-year extended degree course.

If you are planning to study the Accounting, Finance and Economics Foundation Year and know that you intend to progress on to BSc (Hons) Accounting, you would apply for funding for foundation year of BSC (HONS) ACCOUNTING 5YR EXTD.

NOTE: the information on our website shows what courses you can progress onto following the foundation year.

If you are NOT doing a Foundation Year and are starting at Year 1 of your Undergraduate Degree

If you are enrolling onto a course without a foundation year, you should apply for funding for year 1 of the course. Most, but not all, of our courses are set up with an optional placement year. If you are enrolling onto one of these courses, you should apply for funding for year 1 of the 4-year extended course. You do this even if you know you will not want to undertake the placement year in the future (see the section below titled Optional placement year).

If your course is a 3-year course and does not contain an optional sandwich placement year (such as the Allied Health Professional courses like nursing) you should apply for funding for year 1 of the 3-year course with Student Finance.

Optional Placement Year

If you choose to undertake the optional placement year, you do not need to amend your course information when applying for placement year funding. 

If you choose to skip the optional placement year, guidance for current students can be found on the Student Portal.

Clearing

If you are going through clearing, it is important to apply for your funding as soon as possible. Use your first choice of course to apply for funding and then change your application if you need to. See further details at:

Top Tips

  • Apply for your funding as soon as the applications open in the Spring.
  • Ensure that the course description matches that on your offer letter.
  • If your University or course details change, make sure to update your funding application on your online Student Finance account before your course starts (for example if you do not meet the requirements for your conditional offer and are given an offer of an extended course with a foundation year instead).
  • If you have not secured funding or there has been a delay with your funding application when you are due to enrol onto your course, you should contact us for further guidance.
  • Remember that you are required to re-apply for funding for each year of study.

Need Help or Have Questions?

Our specialist teams are here to support you every step of the way.

  • Prospective students can submit a question via our enquiry form
  • Current students can log an enquiry via Ask4Help Online on the Student Portal

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