Universal credit back into education

Has anyone done an access to higher education course while receiving benefits? I’m a single mum living at home with parents and currently on universal credit. I want to study an access course to nursing in September which is full time so won’t leave much room to work alongside this but now being told my benefits would stop if I go to study? My goal obviously isn’t to be relying on benefits but if I chose to go down this route and they stopped Id go from being with my child 24/7 to not seeing him at all

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To my knowledge it only stops if you receive student finance. I went back to finish my final year of my nursing degree after I had my son and they factored in student finance as an income so any universal credit is affected and they’ll stop it or take a big chunk out also if you’re not in work you won’t be eligible for the 85% childcare but student finance does offer a bursary for childcare if that’s something you’d need. Definitely something I would have appreciated to know before I went back. Best of luck x

@Rianna thank you very much that’s so helpful to know for when I start uni! I’m doing an access course at college this year beforehand so I just need to know if getting a loan to pay for that from the college will affect my uc claim I have a telephone appointment with them on Monday so hopefully they can answer that x

If you do take out a loan just prepare yourself that they may factor that in as an income especially if they review your claim and see the loan through your statements. I was told by my advisor sfe (which is a loan essentially) wouldn’t affect the Uc and then they asked me to upload the sfe entitlement it then slashed the Uc entitlement and I had to pay pay back an overpayment. Just something to keep in mind!

I’m on an access to nursing course now and it doesn’t affect my UC at all because I don’t receive maintenance loans or any extra income from my college. the only time being a student affects your UC is when you get maintenance loans. I was speaking to my friend who is on UC and in uni and it competently depends on how much maintenance money you’ll get in one go on how much that’ll effect your UC that month but speaking to the job centre is best for advice. I work around 8-12 hours a week around my course if any of this helps.

@Nicole so did you pay for your access course? I don’t qualify for it free apparently because I’ve already done a level 3 but when I’ve read the eligibility it does say if ur on UC you should get it free I’m just wondering because the college have advised me to apply for a loan through them which means they’d pay for the course and then I’d pay it back in time if this would class as a maintenance loan and therefore effect my uc, Thankyou is is helpful to know it can be done tho so are you working as well as receiving UC? I didn’t want to have to get a job as well as studying so that I could fully focus on it and wouldn’t have to have as much childcare but looking like I might have to find something part time