Financial worries may stem from concerns over your mounting debts, difficulties in finding part-time jobs or temporary work to keep you afloat while you’re studying, or parents or partners losing their jobs or income in the recession. You know all the usual advice – don’t bury your head in the sand, talk to your bank or others to whom you owe money – but it’s still tempting to just hope it will go away.
At the Careers Service we can help you with sources of job information (our vacancy service, plus news items like our “Seen on the Street” blog posts from the undergraduate blog, telling you about part-time jobs seen advertised in Manchester) for long and short term solutions.
For immediate financial advice and support though, these are some of the people you can talk to and some practical things you can do to make a real difference to your situation.
What you can do:
- If you are experiencing unexpected financial difficulties while still a student, for example if you were expecting support from others (partners, parents) who have now been affected by the recession or have lost your part-time job on which you and your dependents rely, investigate whether you are eligible to apply for an “Access to Learning Fund” payment. These are discretionary and have strict eligibility criteria (for example, they do not apply to international students or other students who have not been resident in the UK for at least 3 years before starting their course, but postgraduates as well as undergraduates may be eligible, and also those studying part-time). Demand is currently high and they do have a list of priority groups to whom they offer support, but worth investigating.
- Visit the government student finance pages (for students from the UK and the EU – see this page for those not from England) or UKCISA for international students
- Seek help from the Citizens Advice service which offers free, independent, confidential and impartial advice to people on legal, money and other problems (open to everyone, including graduates). They have lots of on-line information on managing debt, and they also have a network of Citizens Advice Bureaux, offering face to face and telephone advice, including several offices in Manchester.
- There is also information on the “Money Doctor” site, based in the Student Services Centre. They no longer offer individual advice, but do have hints and tips on managing your money, including advice from other students like yourself.
What difference is this recession making?
Check out our assessment of the situation plus, crucially, what you can do about it.
- Recession: an overview
- what this recession means for postgraduates - All doom and gloom – or exaggeration?
- find out what’s really happening in the job market - There are fewer jobs to apply to this year
- how to seek out the jobs which are still out there - There are more people looking for work
- how to make sure you’re the one who gets the job - Researching the job market has never been easier
- use contacts and technology to save time and find jobs - You’re more likely to have financial constraints than previous graduates
- where to find help and support to keep you afloat - FAQs and Comments
- tell us what else you want to know or give us feedback
Feed for posts from this blog
