According to our National Student Money Survey, the Maintenance Loan is one of the biggest sources of money for students while they're at uni.
So, as you'll almost certainly be taking one out, it makes sense to learn about the eligibility criteria, the application process and how big a Maintenance Loan you'll get. You'll also want to know how to pay it back and what to do if your loan isn't enough.
In trademark Save the Student fashion, we have you covered. Read on, and we'll answer all of your questions about student Maintenance Loans.
Unfortunately, Maintenance Loans do not cover average living costs. See the best student bank accounts for 0% interest overdrafts of up to £3,000 to help bridge the gap.
The Maintenance Loan is a Student Loan provided by the government, and it's intended to help towards your living costs while you're at university. Rent, bills, food, nights out – all of these things and more are what the Maintenance Loan is there to help you pay for.
You apply for the Maintenance Loan through the same process as Tuition Fee Loans and, eventually, you'll make repayments on the two as a joint sum. However, the Maintenance Loan and the Tuition Fee Loan are technically two separate types of funding.
And while we're against students having to take on any debt to attend uni, the current repayment terms on Student Loans are fairly manageable. In most cases, we'd argue it's best to take out both a Tuition Fee Loan and a Maintenance Loan, rather than one or the other (or neither).
Maintenance Loans are paid straight into your student bank account in three (almost) equal instalments throughout the year.
You'll get one at the beginning of each semester – other than in Scotland, where loans are paid monthly. This means it's down to you to budget your loan responsibly and make sure you don't spend it all in freshers' week.
Students often ask why the third payment is as big as the others when you'll likely be at home over the summer. The answer is simple: you're still a student, and some of you still have rent to pay during July and August.
And it's thanks to that same logic that things change slightly in your final year.
Your final Maintenance Loan payment is smaller than it would have been in previous years. This is because after June/July you're not a student and no longer entitled to a Student Loan.
Also, note that not all of your Student Loan is paid directly to you. Tuition Fee Loans are paid straight to your university, and you'll never see the money. That means you shouldn't have to worry about your uni chasing you for payment, nor the temptation to spend the cash yourself.
When your Maintenance Loan comes in depends on which part of the UK you're from and when your uni's term officially starts.
But, no matter where you're studying, you'll need to register for your course before you receive your first student finance payment. This is September for most students, so we advise making registration one of the first things you do when you start uni!
Beyond that, there's a little more variation.
Students from England, Northern Ireland and Wales receive their Maintenance Loans in three chunks throughout the year. Usually, these are in September, January and April, but this may vary depending on when your uni's semester officially starts.
Similarly, the exact date you receive your Student Loan is unlikely to be the same as your friends. It's typically paid on the first day of term, and as unis are often several weeks apart on this, there's no reason to worry if your friends receive their loans before you.
If you're from Scotland, things are slightly different – your loan arrives on the 7th of each month.
This means you won't get three massive payments like students from elsewhere in the UK. But, on the plus side, the monthly system does make it easier to keep to a budget.
To help you figure out when your next Student Loan payment is due, this is when you'll receive your Maintenance Loan payments in 2024/25:
Whether or not you're eligible for a Maintenance Loan depends on a few factors. We'll run through each of the criteria in a moment, but don't panic. Most undergraduates starting uni are usually eligible to receive funding.
These are the factors that determine if you qualify for a Maintenance Loan:
As we said earlier, it's best not to let these criteria confuse you.
We stand by our statement that the majority of students at the majority of universities will be eligible to receive a Maintenance Loan. This is especially true if you've been studying at a school in the UK and will be attending a well-known university.
But, as ever, if you're unsure, it's best to contact your funding body and ask them to clarify things for you.
The size of the Maintenance Loan you're entitled to will depend on the following four factors:
It's easiest to explain by country, so scroll through to where you currently live to see how big a Maintenance Loan you could receive.
And remember: your Student Loan is provided by the part of the UK you normally live, not where you will be studying. So, if you live in Northern Ireland but plan to study in Scotland, you should apply for funding from Student Finance Northern Ireland.
Not studying full-time? You'll want to check out our guide to part-time Student Loans.Following an FOI request to the Student Loans Company (SLC), we found out the average Maintenance Loan for English students in 2023/24 was around £7,202 a year.
However, as we've explained above, the amount you'll receive isn't affected by what the 'average' student gets. Instead, the size of your Maintenance Loan is determined by your household income, where you'll be living while studying and where in the UK you normally live.
| Household Income | Living at home | Away from home (outside London) | Away from home (London) |
|---|---|---|---|
| £25,000 or less | £8,610 | £10,227 | £13,348 |
| £30,000 | £7,887 | £9,497 | £12,606 |
| £35,000 | £7,163 | £8,766 | £11,863 |
| £40,000 | £6,440 | £8,035 | £11,120 |
| £42,875 | £6,024 | £7,614 | £10,692 |
| £45,000 | £5,716 | £7,304 | £10,377 |
| £50,000 | £4,993 | £6,573 | £9,634 |
| £55,000 | £4,269 | £5,842 | £8,891 |
| £58,307 | £3,790 | £5,359 | £8,400 |
| £60,000 | £3,790 | £5,111 | £8,148 |
| £62,347 | £3,790 | £4,767 | £7,799 |
| £65,000 | £3,790 | £4,767 | £7,405 |
| £70,000 | £3,790 | £4,767 | £6,662 |
| £70,098+ | £3,790 | £4,767 | £6,647 |
The household incomes in bold represent the upper earnings thresholds for the parents of students in each living situation. Students with parents earning above these thresholds will receive the minimum Maintenance Loan for someone with their living arrangements:
Bear in mind that the household incomes we've given in the table above are just examples. The Maintenance Loan you receive will be calculated using your exact household income rather than a band (e.g. £42,345 instead of £40,000 – £45,000).
The minimum Maintenance Loan on offer for students from England is £3,790. This is paid to students with a household income of £58,307 or more who will live at home during their time at uni.
The maximum Maintenance Loan is £13,348. This is paid to students who will be living away from home and in London, and whose annual household income is £25,000 or less.
And for more info on Student Loans in England, check out our main Student Finance guide.
Maintenance Loans and Grants in N. Ireland 2024/25As well as Maintenance Loans (which need to be repaid), Student Finance Northern Ireland offers students Maintenance Grants (which don’t need to be repaid). You apply for, and receive, the two together, with the amount you receive of each affecting the other.
For that reason, we’ve included Maintenance Grant amounts in these tables. Here’s how much is on offer if you’ll be living with your parents:
| Household income | Maintenance Grant | Maintenance Loan | Total support |
|---|---|---|---|
| £19,203 or less | £3,475 | £3,135 | £6,610 |
| £25,000 | £2,201 | £3,605 | £5,806 |
| £30,000 | £1,215 | £4,035 | £5,250 |
| £35,000 | £689 | £4,561 | £5,250 |
| £41,540 | £0 | £5,250 | £5,250 |
| £45,000 | £0 | £4,740 | £4,740 |
| £50,451+ | £0 | £3,938 | £3,938 |
… living away from home and outside of London:
| Household income | Maintenance Grant | Maintenance Loan | Total support |
|---|---|---|---|
| £19,203 or less | £3,475 | £4,661 | £8,136 |
| £25,000 | £2,201 | £5,131 | £7,332 |
| £30,000 | £1,215 | £5,561 | £6,776 |
| £35,000 | £689 | £6,087 | £6,776 |
| £41,540 | £0 | £6,776 | £6,776 |
| £50,000 | £0 | £5,530 | £5,530 |
| £53,035+ | £0 | £5,084 | £5,084 |
and away from home and in London:
| Household income | Maintenance Grant | Maintenance Loan | Total support |
|---|---|---|---|
| £19,203 or less | £3,475 | £7,377 | £10,852 |
| £25,000 | £2,201 | £7,847 | £10,048 |
| £30,000 | £1,215 | £8,277 | £9,492 |
| £35,000 | £689 | £8,803 | £9,492 |
| £41,540 | £0 | £9,492 | £9,492 |
| £50,000 | £0 | £8,246 | £8,246 |
| £57,643+ | £0 | £7,121 | £7,121 |
The household incomes we’ve given in the table above are just examples. The loan you receive will be calculated using your exact household income rather than a band (e.g. £32,345 instead of £30,000 – £35,000).
The maintenance package for Northern Irish students contains both a grant and a loan. As such, it’s probably more useful to look at the total packages on offer rather than just the loan.
The minimum amount of support on offer for students from Northern Ireland is £3,938. This is paid to students who’ll be living with their parents and whose household income is £50,451 or above.
The maximum amount on offer for students from Northern Ireland is £10,852. This is paid to students who’ll be studying away from home and in London, and whose household income is £19,203 or below. The Maintenance Grant accounts for £3,475 of this support, while the remaining £7,377 is a Maintenance Loan.
Head over to our guide to Northern Irish Student Finance for a detailed breakdown of the funding on offer to you.
Maintenance Loans and Grants in Scotland 2024/25| Household income | Loan | Bursary | Total* |
|---|---|---|---|
| £20,999 or less | £9,400 | £2,000 | £11,400 |
| £21,000 to £23,999 | £9,400 | £1,125 | £10,525 |
| £24,000 to £33,999 | £9,400 | £500 | £9,900 |
| £34,000+ | £8,400 | £0 | £8,400 |
* These amounts assume you’re a dependent (or ‘young’) student. If you’re 25 or older, check out our guide to Student Finance for mature students.
The funding body in Scotland (Student Awards Agency Scotland, or SAAS) offers grants as well as loans.
However, unlike in the rest of the UK, the loans offered to students from Scotland don’t differ based on your living situation. Instead, there are just four sums on offer and the amount you receive depends on what household income band you’re in.
Students with lower household incomes receive more funding overall. What’s more, the proportion of their support that’s non-repayable (a grant) is also bigger.
Another distinction between the Scottish system and the rest of the UK is that students are assessed based on household income bands, rather than exact household incomes.
So, a student whose household income is £24,000 will be entitled to the same support as a student whose household income is £33,999, as these two figures lie within the same band.
The maximum Maintenance Loan and Grant package on offer in Scotland is £11,400. This is paid to students in the lowest income band (£0 – £20,999), with £2,000 of the funding accounted for by a non-repayable grant.
The minimum Maintenance Loan on offer to Scottish students is £8,400, paid to those in the highest income band (£34,000 and above). The entire sum is a loan, meaning it must be repaid.
Our guide to Student Finance in Scotland explains everything you need to know about Scottish Maintenance Loans and more.
Maintenance Loans and Grants in Wales 2024/25The Welsh government offers students a combination of Maintenance Loans and Grants. And, as is the case in Northern Ireland and England, the amount on offer differs based on where you live as well as your household income.
But crucially, students from Wales in the same living situation (i.e. living at home, living away from home and outside London, or living away from home in London) all receive the same amount of money.
The only difference is how much of your package is a loan and how much is a grant. Students with the lowest household incomes receive a bigger portion as a grant, and those with a higher household income receive a bigger loan.
So, with that in mind, here’s what is on offer to students from Wales who’ll be living with their parents:
| Household income | Grant | Loan | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| £18,370 or less | £6,885 | £3,430 | £10,315 |
| £25,000 | £5,930 | £4,385 | £10,315 |
| £35,000 | £4,488 | £5,827 | £10,315 |
| £45,000 | £3,047 | £7,268 | £10,315 |
| £59,200+ | £1,000 | £9,315 | £10,315 |
… living away from home but outside of London:
| Household income | Grant | Loan | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| £18,370 or less | £8,100 | £4,050 | £12,150 |
| £25,000 | £6,947 | £5,203 | £12,150 |
| £35,000 | £5,208 | £6,942 | £12,150 |
| £45,000 | £3,469 | £8,681 | £12,150 |
| £59,200+ | £1,000 | £11,150 | £12,150 |
… and living away from home and in London:
| Household income | Grant | Loan | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| £18,370 or less | £10,124 | £5,046 | £15,170 |
| £25,000 | £8,643 | £6,527 | £15,170 |
| £35,000 | £6,408 | £8,762 | £15,170 |
| £45,000 | £4,174 | £10,966 | £15,170 |
| £59,200+ | £1,000 | £14,170 | £15,170 |
Again, the household incomes we’ve given in the table above are just examples. The Maintenance Loan you receive will be calculated using your exact household income rather than a band (e.g. £42,345 instead of £35,000 – £45,000).
The maximum Maintenance Loan and Grant package available to Welsh students is £15,170. This is paid to all students living away from home and in London.
The minimum Maintenance Loan and Grant package on offer to Welsh students is £10,315. This is paid to all Welsh students who’ll be living at home during their time at uni.
Find out more about the funding available to you in this guide to Welsh Student Finance.
Credit: Violet Giddings – Flickr
Students from England, Northern Ireland or Wales can all apply for a Maintenance Loan online or by post. If you’re from Scotland, there’s no postal option, so you’ll have to apply online.
That said, whether you apply online or by post, you may still need to send some supporting evidence in the mail. This is likely to be things like passports, birth certificates and so on.
We’ve got a full guide to applying for Student Finance (including Maintenance Loans). But if you’re just after a link to your funding body, we’ve got you covered too.
Remember that you apply for funding from the part of the UK you ordinarily live in, not the part you’ll be studying in.
All clear? Great. Here are the links to apply for a Student Loan from each of the UK’s four funding bodies:
If applying for Student Finance for the 2024/25 academic year, you’ll need to provide your household income from the 2022/23 tax year (6th April 2022 – 5th April 2023).
But if you think your household income for the tax year (6th April 2024 – 5th April 2025) will be significantly lower than in the 2022/23 tax year, you can apply for what’s known as a Current Year Income Assessment. This will entitle you to larger Maintenance Loan payments throughout the entire academic year.
At the end of the 2024/25 tax year, you’ll need to submit further evidence to prove what your household income was. If it was lower than expected, you may get some extra Maintenance Loan. But if it’s higher than you estimated, you’ll have to repay some straight away.
Here are the criteria for a Current Income Assessment in each country:
And a heads up if your household income was previously above the maximum threshold. In England, Northern Ireland and Wales, it needs to drop below this mark for you to become eligible for extra funding.
Similarly, across the UK, if your household income is already below the minimum threshold, you won’t be eligible for a larger Student Loan. This is because you already receive the maximum amount.
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it 100 times. Despite the flaws in the Student Finance system, the repayment terms for Maintenance Loans (and Student Loans overall) are fairly generous.
You’ll make repayments towards your Maintenance Loan and Tuition Fee Loan together as one Student Loan. So when we discuss the repayment terms of Maintenance Loans, remember it applies across the board.
We have a guide to Student Loan repayments that explains it all in a lot more detail. But, for now, we’ll answer a few of the most common questions students have about repaying Maintenance Loans.
These are the current Student Loan interest rates:
Remember that the interest rates on Student Loans change each year based on inflation (or potentially more frequently). For a full explainer of how it works, read our Student Loan repayments explainer.
No matter where you’re from in the UK, you only start repaying your Student Loan from the April after you’ve graduated. And even then you’ll need to be earning over the repayment threshold for your type of loan.
The current repayment thresholds for UK graduates are:
Like the interest rates on Student Loans, the repayment thresholds can change each year. Check out our Student Loan repayments guide for more info.
In terms of the ‘how’, most graduates won’t need to worry about actively making repayments.
Unless you’re self-employed, your Student Loan repayments will automatically be deducted from your salary in the same way that tax is. You won’t have to manually repay anything.
If you are self-employed, you’ll need to make Student Loan repayments as part of your self-assessment tax return.
A major positive of the Student Loan’s repayment terms is that no matter how much you’ve paid back, the government cancels the balance after a number of years.
If you’re from England, Scotland or Wales, your loan is written off 30 years after you first become eligible to repay (the April after you graduated). If you’re from England and start your course after 1st August 2023, it’ll be 40 years before your loan is written off.
Northern Irish students have their loans cancelled after 25 years.
Across the UK, your loan will be written off if you have to claim a disability-related benefit and can no longer work (or if you die).
For more info on tuition fees and funding see our full guide to Student Finance.
Every year we run our National Student Money Survey. And, every year, we find that the Maintenance Loan isn’t big enough.
In our latest survey, the average monthly shortfall between Maintenance Loans and student living costs was around £504. As such, nearly three in five (58%) students in the survey said their Maintenance Loan isn’t enough.
So, sadly, you’ll likely need some extra funding while at uni.
If your Maintenance Loan doesn’t cover your student living costs, here are your options for extra funding:
Whenever students ask us what the best student bank account is, our first tip is to look for the ones with the biggest interest-free overdrafts. Most major banks offer a student account. And, in most cases, they offer an interest-free overdraft as part of the deal. This means that, unlike most bank accounts, you can dip into your overdraft without having to worry about any charges. You only need to worry about climbing out of your overdraft once you’ve graduated. But, even then, you shouldn’t have to do it straight away. Most student accounts become graduate bank accounts once you leave uni. These have interest-free overdrafts too, but the size steadily decreases over two or three years. So, if your Maintenance Loan isn’t enough, your student overdraft is one of the safest sources of extra money.
If you want to know more about student accounts, make sure you watch our dedicated student bank account video guide.
In tough times, it’s tempting to turn to the easiest and quickest sources of money. Often, these are payday and high-interest loans.
We strongly advise against taking out either of these loans, as the medium- and long-term issues they bring by far outweigh any short-term positives.
The dangers of payday loans are well-publicised. But high-interest loans, such as those offered by private loan companies, don’t receive anywhere near as much scrutiny or criticism. This is despite having many of the same flaws.
We’ve put together a guide on the risks of private student loans, as well as the safer alternatives you can turn to for extra cash. Please read it if you’re considering taking out a high-interest loan!
At Save the Student, we have consistently called on the government to increase Maintenance Loans.
For too many students, their loans are simply not big enough to cover all their living costs, leading many to struggle to afford essentials like food.
For students from England especially, Maintenance Loans have fallen far short of keeping up with inflation over recent years, making an already difficult situation even harder.
As Communications Director at Save the Student, campaigning is a big part of my job. Here’s why I think this particular cause is so vital:
At Save the Student, we work tirelessly to share our very best tips for making your Maintenance Loan go further. But, ultimately, scrimping and saving can only get you so far if the loan isn’t enough to cover even your basic living costs.
Sadly, our surveys have consistently found that this is the case for far too many students. And, in recent years, the problem has become far worse – particularly in England, where the real-terms value of the loan has shrunk by up to £1,900 after the government failed to increase funding at anywhere near the rate of inflation.
It’s a scandal that students should have their loans cut like this, which is why we’re campaigning for the government to increase funding to catch up with inflation.
We’ve run petitions in both 2023 and 2024 which have received substantial support. One was referenced in a Parliamentary debate, while the other received a response from the government. However, as the government declined to take any action, and the issue is persisting, we are continuing to campaign.
Behind the scenes, we’re working on more ways to raise awareness of the issues and increase the pressure on the government to improve the situation for students. Follow us on Instagram (@savethestudent) to follow our progress.
Worried your Maintenance Loan won’t get you through uni? Check out our list of ways to make money for some inspiration.
Tom joined Save the Student in 2017, initially heading up the editorial team before becoming Communications Director. He has appeared as a Student Finance expert on a range of TV and radio stations including the BBC, ITV and Sky, sharing his top tips for saving money and cutting student bills.
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