Stage 4: During your course
Full-time undergraduate, tuition fee and living cost students

Reassessment of your entitlement

If you’re in financial hardship due to a reassessment of your entitlement, visit our Financial Hardship guidance.

What is a reassessment?

A reassessment is when we recalculate your student finance entitlement (how much you can get). A reassessment normally happens after we’ve been notified of:

  • a change to your circumstances
  • updated information in relation to you or your course
  • new estimates or confirmation of previously estimated information

We’ll consider how this new information affects your current student finance entitlement and let you know:

  • what has changed
  • how it affects your funding
  • any actions you need to take as a result

What will happen following a reassessment?

We’ll always send you an updated Notification of Entitlement letter to confirm your new entitlement and tell you if you need to do anything.

How can a reassessment affect your student finance?

If your entitlement is reassessed this could mean either:

  • you're due more funding, so future payments may be increased
  • you're due less funding, so future payments may be reduced
  • you're due less funding because you've been paid too much and now need to repay the amount you've been overpaid
  • your entitlement is unchanged - we'll still write to you to confirm this

What is a grant or loan overpayment?

An overpayment is when you're paid more student finance than you are entitled to. This can happen if:

  • you don't notify us that you've left or taken a break from your course
  • you've not provided sufficient evidence on time to prove your financial situation
  • your circumstances have changed

We may recover an overpayment by deducting money from any future payments. If you’ve finished or left your course we recommend you contact us to discuss your repayment options. An overpayment needs to be repaid even if you are earning under the repayment threshold.

Taking a break or permanently leaving your course?

We understand that circumstances change, and you may need to:

  • take a break from your studies (suspend)
  • permanently leave your course (withdraw)

If you decide to withdraw from or suspend your studies, it’s important you let us and your university or college know immediately.

Withdrawing from your course or suspending your studies can affect your future student finance.

Returning to study after withdrawing or suspending from your course?

If you’re re-applying for student finance and have previously withdrawn from a course, you will need to:

  • re-apply as a new student
  • re-send all of your evidence, including your identity evidence

If you’re returning to a course that you’ve previously suspended, then what you need to do depends on how long you have been out of study. If you’re:

  • resuming study within the same academic year, your university can notify us of your return – you don’t need to do anything.
  • resuming study during the next academic year you need to re-apply for student finance as a continuing student, and your university must notify us of your return date. 
  • taking a break in your studies for two or more years, you’ll need to re-apply as a new student when you return to your course.

Your grants and loans may be different to your previous support.

Still studying and unsure why you’ve received a letter about being overpaid?

Your student finance entitlement may be reassessed while studying which could result in an overpayment. This could be due to a change you’ve made on your application. If you’re overpaid, we’ll send you a letter to let you know.

You’ll also receive a new Notification of Entitlement letter showing your revised student finance for the academic year.