SAAS Student Loan/Funding Application [Eligibility, How to Apply]

Application for the SAAS Student loan application is always open to all eligible students. It is open to both undergraduate students and postgraduate students.

Go through this article and see all you need to know about the SAAS students loan, application requirements, how to login to your Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) account, funding, contact and so on

SAAD Student Loan Application for Undergraduates

Te information below are for undergraduate students. If you are a post graduate, read down for your information.

Eligibility for Undergraduate Funding

While applying for funding, you’ll be classified as a Young Student or Independent Student

To be assessed as a Young Student, you must meet all of the following requirements on the first day of your course:you are under 25 before the academic year begins

• At the start of the academic year, you don’t have any children who depend on you.
• you haven’t worked or gotten benefits to pay for yourself outside of school for the three years before the relevant date.
• you’re not married, living with a partner, or in a civil partnership.
• During the course, if your situation changes, please let us know through your SAAS Account.

Eligibility for Postgraduate Funding

To get help as an independent student, you must meet at least one of the following:

• You’ll be over 25 before the academic year starts, so we’re evaluating you for (1 August for autumn start courses)
• you’ve been able to pay for yourself outside of full-time school for at least 3 years before the deadline.
• At the start of the school year, you have a child who depends on you and lives with you most of the week.
• you don’t have any parents alive.
• before the relevant date, you were married, in a civil partnership, or living with a partner.

you’re estranged from your parents. For more information, visit our estrangement guide

Eligible Courses

You must be enrolled in an eligible course at a college or university. Most of the full-time courses funded by SAAS are:

• validated first degree courses at colleges and universities in the United Kingdom (UK)
• Higher National Certificates that last one year (HNC)
• Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE)
• some graduate entry degrees (excluding fees and bursary)
• Higher National Diplomas last for two years (HND)
• Diploma in Higher Education
• Higher Education Certificate

SAAS also fund approved first degree courses at:

• Trinity College Dublin
• University College Dublin
• University College Cork
• University College Galway
• University College Maynooth

Funding is also available to some courses at privately-funded institutions.

For more information about eligibility of courses, visit the full-time funding guide.

Residence

To meet our general residence conditions, you must:

• be a regular resident of the UK, the Channel Islands, or the Isle of Man for the three years before the deadline, and
• have what the Immigration Act of 1971 calls “settled status” in the UK on the date in question, and
• be living in Scotland most of the time on the date in question.

For Ordinary Residents

A person lives there most of the time if they do any of the following:

• lawfully
• voluntarily
• for a set goal as part of their daily life, whether it’s for a short time or a long time.

In other words, your usual place of residence is where you live most of the time.

To be considered an ordinary resident of Scotland, a person must have moved there with the intention of staying and living there. If you are only in Scotland to go to school and would live somewhere else otherwise, you are not normally a resident of Scotland. If you’re not sure, you can use the contact us button.

The relevant dates

The relevant date depends on when your course starts. The relevant dates are as follows:

• August 1st for courses that start between 1 August and 31 December
• January 1st for courses that start between 1 January and 31 March
• April 1st for courses that start between 1 April and 30 June
• July 1st for courses that start between 1 July and 31 July

See more details on SAAS Loan/funding Application for Undergraduates.

SEE ALSO: Student Loan Company Contact [Phone Number, Email & Address]

SAAS Student Loan/Funding Application for Postgraduates

To get funding, you have to take a course that we pay for and meet our rules about where you live. We might also think about any classes you’ve taken in the past.

Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) students can get the same funding as undergraduates.

Eligibility for Postgraduates

• SAAS offers help for Postgraduate Diploma and Masters level courses.
• We don’t help with Postgraduate Certificate, PhD, or Doctorate level courses.
• Students in a PhD or Doctoral program might be able to get help from a Research Council instead.

Courses

Support is available for courses at universities that are paid for by the government. This includes courses that can be taken from home or through research.

There has to be a certain amount of teaching or contact time between the student and the teaching staff at the institution for distance learning courses. Get in touch with us to find out if your distance learning course qualifies.

We also pay for eligible full-time courses in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, as long as the same course is not offered in Scotland.

In general, we pay for:

• full-time Postgraduate Diplomas that take up to one year to complete
• full-time Masters that take up to 2 years to complete

Social Work Courses

SAAS does not pay for graduate courses in social work. The Scottish Social Services Council is in charge of giving money to people who want to go to graduate school for social work in Scotland (SSSC).The University of Dundee has an MSc in Educational Psychology.

Visit our guide to learn more about the MSc Educational Psychology funding options at the University of Dundee.

Tuition fees cut off date

The cut-off dates for session 2022-2023 are:

• 1 December, 2022 for courses starting between 1 August 2022 and 31 December 2022
• 1 March 2023 for courses starting between 1 January 2023 and 31 March 2023

If you transfer to another course, you should contact SAAS as this may affect your eligibility to support. 

See more information about the SAAS postgraduate loan

How to Apply for SAAS Student Loan / Funding

You have to apply for student funding every year of your course, not just the first. You should apply as soon as you can to make sure you have the money when your course starts.

If we get your application after June 30, 2022, we might not be able to process it before the start of your course. The Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) has set a deadline of June 30, 2022, for both new and returning students to apply for financial aid.

The last day (deadline) to apply for this academic year is March 31, 2023.

If it’s the first time applying for funding

• You’ll get an email with a link to activate your account once you’ve signed up. The link will take you to a page confirming that your account is active with a link to the login page.
• You’ll get an option to apply for funding

You can apply for funding, but you can also:

• see how your application is doing.
• view your award notice
• using the services in your online account, you can check or change the information you have submitted.

If you’ve applied for funding befhore

• Login to your SAAS Account by entering your email address and password
• You will then get the option to apply for funding.

Just like applying for your funding, you can also:

• check your application status
• view your award notice
• review or update the details we hold for you by using the services within your online account

If you forgot to apply for a student loan

If you forgot to apply for a student loan when you filled out your online application, you can still do so through the following means:

• You can get Adobe Acrobat for your phone, tablet, laptop, or PC by downloading and installing it. Please note that PDF software from a third party might not work right.
• Go to the website where you can apply for a student loan and save the form to your device. Please don’t fill out the form in the window of your browser.
• Fill out all the information needed.
• Save the form and make sure everything is correct.
• Use the Document Uploader to send your completed form to your SAAS account.

How SAAS Student Loan Applications are Processed

In the table below, you can see what dates of applications the SAAS are working on right now. If you sent in your request for funding after the date shown, it means that your application hasn’t gotten to them yet. But all applications will be attended to as soon as possible.

Every year,SAAS gets more than 180,000 student loan applications, and most of them come all at once at certain times during the session. So, it may take us longer to handle them right now, but you can rest assured that we are doing our best.

We might get in touch with you before the dates below. This can be because of the type of funding asked for or because the person has already gotten funding.

Responding to your enquiries

In the table below, you can see how far along we are with answering your questions about your SAAS Account Document Uploader and Student Enquiry facility.

NOTE: If you apply by June 30, SAAS will try to process your application and any supporting documents before your course starts.

If you apply after this date, we can’t promise that your application will be processed before your course starts. But we can make any payments go back to when your course started.

Supporting Evidences for SAAS Student Loan Application

Make sure you fill out your application correctly and send in all the right proof right away so your application can fully evaluated and awards given accordingly.

If we need to get in touch with you for more information about your application, it could slow down your funding. Most of the time, we’ll contact you through the email address you gave on your application or through your SAAS Account.

Award letter and changes to the application

Your award letter and any new information about your application will be sent to your SAAS Account.

If your application has been reviewed and you’ve been given money, you’ll be able to see and download your award letter here.

Log in to your SAAS Account and look under the “Applications” section to see your award letter.