Salford Support Fund

Types of awards

1. Standard: an assessment of income against allowable expenditure will be carried out to see if you are eligible for an award
2. Non-standard: considered when you don’t qualify for a standard award but have unexpected expenditure during the year resulting in hardship

Eligibility for the Fund

• You must be a UK student or an EU student in receipt of both a tuition fees loan and a maintenance loan from Student Finance
• You must be registered on a full or part-time course. This can be at either an undergraduate or postgraduate level of study
• If you are a postgraduate student or a part-time undergraduate student, you must be able to show that you have made reasonable financial provision to support yourself during your studies
• You must have accessed all other sources of funding available to you before making an application, e.g. funding from Student Finance, savings, financial support from family, utilising any overdrafts available to you, etc.

Applying for the Fund

In order to apply to the Fund you will need to contact askUS to request a link to the online application. To contact askUS, you can phone us on +44 (0)161 295 0023 (option 2, option 3), email us on askus@salford.ac.uk or visit us in University House, Peel Park campus. 

Before completing the form, review our guide to make sure you have all the necessary evidence and documentation we require to make a full assessment. Once you have completed the form in full and submitted it, your application will be assessed by a specialist askUS adviser. You may be contacted to provide further evidence or to attend an appointment to discuss your financial circumstances.

Please note: you will not be offered an appointment with the assessment team if your application is missing evidence or has not been fully completed.

Rise in the cost of living

Due to the rise in living costs caused by inflation and energy cost increases, we have made changes to our composite living cost (CLC) figure that we use to measure students' weekly expenditure, making sure that any awards we give account for this. If you live in accommodation where you do not pay separate energy bills (such as Peel Park Quarter), you will not have energy bills included in your CLC figure.

When applying to the fund, you can state ‘cost of living/energy bills’ as a reason in your personal statement along with any other circumstances/reasons for your application for hardship funding.

These recent changes will make it more likely that you will receive an award or a higher award but does not guarantee you an award.

Appeals for unsuccessful applications

Stage 1: Assessment Review

Reviews can be requested if you feel that there has been a mistake made within your assessment or if relevant information has been missed out. This includes submission of new evidence that was not available at the time of assessment, if applicable. Applications will not be reviewed if the reason is purely disappointment with the outcome. Please note that capped figures and the treatment of debt as set out in our guidance cannot be changed.

Please contact moneymatters@salford.ac.uk to request a Review form. This should be requested and submitted within 15 days of the date on your decision letter.

Stage 2: Formal Appeal

If after the outcome of the Review, you are still not satisfied with your assessment decision, you are entitled to make a formal appeal.

The grounds on which a student can formally appeal the decision are:

• The approved procedures for the allocation of the Salford Support Fund were not followed
• A decision was made that was not supported by the evidence submitted

Appeals against a Salford Support Fund decision must be submitted on an Appeal Form within 15 working days of the date on the decision letter or the date of your review.

You must indicate the grounds for the appeal and a detailed statement must be submitted, explaining why the decision is being challenged. Where the reason for an appeal is that the Salford Support Fund decision was not supported by the evidence submitted, you must have received guidance on how the original decision was made before an appeal can be pursued.

The Appeals Panel will consider an appeal after the deadline only if there is a valid reason for the appeal being delayed. The Appeals Panel will make the final decision on whether it will consider appeals submitted after the deadline.

Appeals Procedure

Your Appeal Form and a summary of the original application will be submitted to the Appeals Panel for consideration together with a copy of the assessor's spreadsheet and assessment sheet giving the reason for the original decision. The Appeals Panel may review the full application if required.

The decision of the Appeals Panel on the current application is final. If an appeal is rejected this does not prevent a re-application based on changed circumstances at a later date.

The names of the Appeals Panel can be given upon request.

If you wish to make a formal appeal, please contact moneymatters@salford.ac.uk to request the appropriate form.

Disabled Students Allowance (DSA) contribution support

Following the Government's decision not to fund the first £200 of any required computer or laptop that has been recommended through a DSA assessment, the University has decided to offer financial assistance in reimbursing these costs to help support you with your studies.

Applications for DSA open on 18 September 2023 for all eligible students and close on 21 July 2024. Find out more information on our Funding for Support webpage.