Hardship Grants & Emergency Loans
What it is: A Hardship Grant can be applied for by any student, undergraduate or postgraduate facing financial difficulties that are not the fault of the student and were unforeseen and unforeseeable at the time of admission. When the need for financial support from the Hardship Fund is sufficiently urgent that it cannot wait until the next meeting of the Financial Adversity Support Committee, an Emergency Loan from the Hardship Fund, to a maximum of £250, can be authorised.
How you access it: Current students can apply for funds. The Senior Tutor or Senior Postgraduate Tutor has to certify that in their opinion, the loan is required urgently for reasons of hardship that could not have been foreseen at the time of admission of the student. To apply for a Hardship Grant, you should show that you have applied to all appropriate University Funds, particularly e.g. the Cambridge Bursary Scheme.
The College recognises that the assessment procedures used by the Student Loans company (upon the outcome of which Newton Trust and University Hardship Funds applications may necessarily depend) can be rather rigid, and may fail to take into account exceptional circumstances, hence creating this fund.
How it is funded: Thanks to donors’ gifts to the Student Support Fund .