Claiming Income-Related ESA when studying masters

I need advice on how studying a part-time postgraduate degree would affect my benefits. I have applied to do a masters over 2 years starting in September 2020.

I am in receipt of income-related ESA and I am in the Support Group and get Severe Disability Premium. I also receive Enhanced Rate PIP for both elements.

I will receive a postgraduate loan to fund my studies, and I understand part (or all?) of this is considered as income and I would therefore either lose my ESA or receive a reduce amount. Could you advise on this - ie what I would end up receiving from my ESA - if I pursue this course part time?

Many thanks,

ka

Thanks for this Gordon. I was worried that the loan would be over the amount of income one is allowed whilst claiming IR ESA, and then I’d lose a load of other entitlements. Will the amount of the loan definitely not take me over the limit?

With the course, I guess this is a risk one has to take. I think part time study is manageable with my condition, I was in receipt of ESA and DLA whilst studying my undergraduate degree full time and did not have any problems, but it’s always possible it’s held against me, I had a lot of support from disability services at my alma mater, and I had many reasonable adjustments to help me complete the course (deadline extensions, note taker at lectures etc).

HI

I am a postgraduate student and have just sorted my ESA as they kept getting the disregards wrong. For postgraduate study, only 30 percent of the loan is counted as income. Then a disregard of £303 is applied for travel and £390 for books is also disregarded. The amount left from this is then divided over your study weeks (for me this was 40 weeks) and the resulting figure is the amount they take into consideration after a further £10 a week disregard.

So, over two years for example, out of a £10,906 loan this is £5453 per year. Only 30% is counted which is £1635.90. Then after travel and book expenses, this is £942.90 per year counted as income. Divide this by 40 weeks and that is £23.57 and after the £10 disregard, a week means that your income is 13.57 per week and this is the amount that they would take away from the ESA payment per week.

Hope that helps
Donna