This article provides information regarding the availability of a student loan for a repeat year of study.

Student Finance England offers support for the length of your course, plus one additional year if required, minus any years of previous study at university. Previous study is taken into account even if you did not receive funding for it or the study was undertaken overseas.

So for example, if you have to repeat a year of your course, then as long as you do not have any other previous study, you can receive funding for the extra year. If you have to repeat another year however, or if you have already repeated or studied a different course you will have to self-fund your tuition fees for this repeat year.  However, you will still be able to apply for a maintenance loan and extra support as the Parents Learning Allowance and Childcare Grant.

Student Finance England has discretion to extend your funding if you have compelling personal reasons for repeating a period of study, for example, ill health. This discretion can be applied each time you are unable to complete a year due to your compelling personal reasons. You will need to provide evidence of your compelling personal reasons such as a Doctor's letter.

Please note, different rules apply if you are not receiving funding from Student Finance England. Visit the following websites for further information:

For further information or support applying for discretion due to compelling personal reasons please contact the Student Finance Centre. We can talk you through the process of applying for this and the sort of evidence you will need to provide

For further information about repeat fees and how to pay them if you are self-funding please contact the Department of Student Academic Administration via feeenquiries@port.ac.uk.