Student Finances
Money can be a difficult thing to manage for a lot of people and your need for it can change as you move through your time at Imperial. Below are some stories from our Imperial Personae about their specific circumstances. If you have financial issues please contact the financial support team.
Islamic Finance and Student Loans
I am Karl, I grew up in Northern Ireland, but I am Syrian. My family are refugees, and our culture and heritage are really important to us. I was raised to be ‘European’ as well as a practicing Muslim. I am really thankful to be able to experience both of those cultures but sometimes my faith means I do things a little differently from ‘normal’. Islamic Finance is a way of managing money that also adheres to the moral principle of the Islam, and the belief that you should not be able to make money from money. This means that loans with interest are a bit tricky! You can find out more about this on the Bank of England webpages.
What this means for me as a student is that I don’t have a Student Loan, because the interest repayments make them non-compliant with the principles of Islamic Finance. I do have a part-time job but money is tight so I spoke with the Student Hub and they were really helpful we went through the Student funding and Sharia law pages and I am planning to investigate the Imperial Bursary. I didn’t realise I would be eligible for this because you need to apply for the means-tested government loan to be able to get a bursary. I didn’t do this because I knew I wouldn’t take it, but they told me I don’t have to, it is just a way of them understanding how much I need so they can help support me.
Andrew
Andrew comes from a low-income family and works to support his mother and his younger sister. He has a tuition fee loan and the full maintenance loan; this covers his tuition fees and most of what he needs for college. However, because his mother has health issues and only works part-time herself this is still not enough as he is now only working part-time.
Imperial provides a number of financial services to students. Below are the options that Andrew has and how he utilises them.
Andrews options
Being a home undergraduate student with a low family household income means he is eligible for the highest amount of the Imperial Bursary. He was not fully aware he would be eligible for this financial support until he received an email from the university just before his degree.
The full bursary is £5000 pounds which he uses mostly for travel. He lives in Watford, which is in Zone 9, and South Kensington is in Zone 1. He has an 18+ travel card which means he gets 30% off his London travel but he still has to budget carefully. Given he comes to campus at least three times per week and uses his Oyster Card to travel to and from work thinks an annual pass would be most cost effective. Unfortunately, this would mean he needs to pay a large sum upfront and because his Bursary is paid monthly, he decides to get a month pass instead. This means he can skip months where he is not on campus much.
Based on using his card for 10 months from 12 this leaves him with almost £2000 left from his bursary payment.
As a bursary holder Andrew is also eligible for the Union Student Experience Fund which allows him £65 to spend on union activities. His job is quite active and now he is doing it less he feels his fitness is dropping and he also wants to make some new friends at uni. Since he often has long periods of time during the day he has decided to spend some of his bursary money on a gym membership which is £65 for the academic year. He would also like to join a club and has come up with two options. What would you advise him to do?
Boxing Club or Imperial Mountaineering ?
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|
Boxing |
Mountaineering |
|
Union fees (covered by the union support fund) |
£15 |
£20 |
|
Other costs |
£4 per session (12 would be covered by the union support fund) |
They often go to other climbing walls so this would be an unknown cost |
|
Ethos |
He can swim or use the gym any time with his Ethos membership |
The Ethos climbing wall is £20 for a month pass. |
|
Social activities |
None specified on the site but he imagines that he will meet people at the sessions who he might be able to train with. |
The have subsidised weekends away which sounds cool but he would probably be working. |
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Other factors |
He has never tried boxing and is unsure what to expect, but he knows that it is really good for his fitness. |
He has never tried climbing and has always wanted to give it a go but wall fees are often quite expensive. |
Blackbullion is a financial management website, which he does use, although he has been managing his family finances for some time. He does find the money manager app helpful, and this has helped him to structure the families spending more. If he were in a situation where he needed to access the Student Support fund he would have to access Blackbullion to do it. He hopes he won’t need to as his sister will finish her GCSEs soon and will be able to work.
Glossary
- Tuition Fee Loans cover the full cost of your course, are paid directly to the course provider, and you won’t have to pay it back until after your course, when you’re earning above a certain level.
- Maintenance Loans can be applied for at the same time, lending you money at the start of each term. How much you get depends on your household income, where you study, where you live, and how long for.
- The Imperial Bursary is paid on top of the loans you might get above and you don’t have to pay it back.