Everything you need to know about the hardship fund before you apply

There are lots of reasons why someone might need to apply to our Hardship Fund, so here is everything you need to know about the Hardship Fund before you apply.

We know that sometimes situations can arise which are beyond your control, and these can cause a range of financial difficulties. This could be an expected expense, like car repairs or emergency dental treatment, or could be due to a sudden, unexpected loss of income.

Our Hardship Fund is a discretionary fund intended to support students who are struggling with unforeseen and unavoidable financial hardship during their course.

Any Keele University student can apply to be considered for the Hardship Fund, regardless of your course level, fee status or course intensity.

If you decide to apply for the Hardship Fund, you should be able to show that you’re facing genuine financial hardship, being unable to afford essential costs such as accommodation, food and travel. You should also be able to show that you made reasonable provision for your living costs before the start of the academic year, and that your financial difficulties are due to unforeseen circumstances outside of your control. You must also have exhausted all other financial assistance before applying to the Hardship Fund.

Applications for the Hardship Fund are online on the Blackbullion portal – we work with Blackbullion to make Hardship Fund applications as smooth as possible.

All Keele University students can register for a free Blackbullion account online. It’s quick and simple to get started.

You will find the Hardship Fund application form in the Blackbullion Funding Hub tab, where you can also search for a wide range of internal and external scholarships and grants.

The application form will ask you to confirm details about yourself and your circumstances, and there is space for you to tell us about anything which has impacted your financial stability.

You’ll also need to provide some evidence to support your application. We ask for three main pieces of evidence, but we may need to ask for further information or evidence later in the process.

We won’t be able to process your application until we’ve received all evidence.

Your Student Finance entitlement summary confirms how much how much funding you’ll receive during the academic year to contribute towards your living costs. Here’s an example of what an entitlement summary letter might look like.

You can find and download a PDF copy of your entitlement summary from your Student Finance portal. Once you’ve signed into the portal, click on the inbox tab, and then download your most recent entitlement summary PDF.

If you’re not eligible for a Student Finance loan or if you’ve chosen not to take out a loan for religious reasons, just let us know in your application.

Your tenancy agreement confirms the cost and length of your tenancy agreement. Here’s an example of what a tenancy agreement might look like, although they can often look different. You will usually have a copy of your tenancy agreement emailed to you at the time the agreement is set up. Some accommodation providers, such as private student halls, have online portals instead. We’re happy to accept a screenshot of an online portal, as long as it shows your full name, the start and end dates of your tenancy and the cost.

Not everyone will have a tenancy agreement – if that’s the case for you, just let us know why in your application.

You will need to provide three months of bank statements for all your bank accounts, including any savings accounts. This helps to understand your financial situation and ensures we can assess applications fairly. When we look through bank statements, we're looking to get a bigger picture of your income and living costs so that we can take this into account. For example, if we can see on your bank statements that you’re not receiving much financial support from family, we can take this into consideration.

There are two options for providing your bank statements. The recommended option is to use open banking, which is a fast and secure way to instantly and automatically pull in 3 months of bank statements for all your bank accounts. This makes it easier to assess your application quickly.

Alternatively, you can manually download and provide PDF bank statements instead, although this will usually take longer for us to process.

Once you’ve submitted your application to the Hardship Fund, we’ll start processing it as soon as we can.

Your application details will first be checked by Student Services, so that they can check for any mistakes or missing evidence. They will let you know if any key evidence is missing so that you can upload this at your next opportunity.

We’ll then begin to assess your application using national higher education support fund guidance. If you need any more information or supporting evidence, we’ll request this from you by email. You’ll need to upload this within 2 weeks.

Once your hardship fund assessment is complete, you’ll receive your outcome by email. If you’ve been granted an award, this will be paid within 10 working days by bank transfer.

In some cases, we might also invite you to a Financial Wellbeing Check with one of our advisors. This is so that we can help you to improve your overall financial wellbeing, and discuss any wider issues raised in your application.

You can download a copy of our full application guidance when you start your hardship fund application. This contains step by step guidance on the entire process, and an evidence checklist to help you to remember what you’ll need to upload.

You can also find more information and a whole range of frequently asked questions on our webpages. Just search for Keele hardship fund.

If you need any support with your application, or have any questions about the Hardship Fund, please email us at student.services@keele.ac.uk and we’ll be happy to help.