Bursaries and Scholarships

Information and guidance about the bursaries and financial support the University of Chester offers to students.

This information is for students commencing their studies in the 2026-27 academic year.  You can see the full terms and conditions and guidance in our Policy and Guidance document.

Care Experienced Bursary

A non-repayable £1,500 cash bursary may be available if you are care-experienced. This bursary also includes a £1,000 fee waiver and support towards accommodation costs (where relevant).

You can apply for this bursary if:

  • You are a UK undergraduate student paying tuition fees of at least £6,525 for 2026/27 entrants, including foundation degrees and foundation year for Creative and Performing Arts, Engineering, Medical subjects and Science courses or £3,835 for foundation year for mainly Business, Humanities, Social Sciences for 2026/27 entrants (level 3 only before being moved to the above for Levels 4-6).
  • You have been in local authority care for at least three months before the age of 18, or have been subject to a Special Guardianship Order.
  • Under 25 on 1st September of the first academic year of your current course with a minimum of 3 months spent in care prior to your 18th birthday.

If eligible, the Care Experienced Bursary is available once for each level of study.

Further information about this package is available on the Support Packages page.

Applications are limited, so please contact studentservices@chester.ac.uk for further details.

Estranged Student Bursary

A non-repayable £1,500 cash bursary may be available if you are estranged from your family. This bursary also includes support towards accommodation costs (where relevant).

You can apply for this bursary if:

  • You are a UK undergraduate student paying tuition fees of at least £6,525 for 2026/27 entrants, including foundation degrees and foundation year for Creative and Performing Arts, Engineering, Medical subjects and Science courses or £3,835 for foundation year for mainly Business, Humanities, Social Sciences for 2026/27 entrants (level 3 only before being moved to the above for Levels 4-6).
  • You have been assessed as independent due to estrangement by Student Finance.
  • Under 25 on 1st September of the first academic year of your current course.

If eligible, you will need to continue to evidence your estranged status each academic year.

Further information about this package is available on the Support Packages page.

Applications are limited, so please contact studentservices@chester.ac.uk for further details.  

Carer Support Package

A non-repayable £1,500 cash bursary may be available if you have caring responsibilities.  

You can apply for this bursary if:

  • You are a UK undergraduate student paying tuition fees of at least £6,525 for 2026/27 entrants, including foundation degrees and foundation year for Creative and Performing Arts, Engineering, Medical subjects and Science courses or £3,835 for foundation year for mainly Business, Humanities, Social Sciences for 2026/27 entrants (level 3 only before being moved to the above for Levels 4-6).
  • You are registered with a recognised carer organisation.
  • You regularly care for a sick, elderly, or disabled family member.
  • You were previously in receipt of Carer’s Benefits, have a notification letter or have section B of the University of Chester application form completed by a healthcare professional, social worker or staff member from a carer network. Note, you cannot claim carer's benefit as a full time student.
  • You have a means-tested household income of £40,000 or less as assessed by the Student Loans Company.

If eligible, you will need to continue to evidence your caring responsibilities each academic year.

Further information about this package is available on the Support Packages page.

Applications are limited, so please contact studentservices@chester.ac.uk for further details.  

Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, Showman, Boater Bursary

A non-repayable £1,500 cash bursary may be available if you are a member of the Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, Showman, or Boater community.

You can apply for this bursary if:

  • You are a UK undergraduate student paying tuition fees of at least £6,525 for 2026/27 entrants, including foundation degrees and foundation year for Creative and Performing Arts, Engineering, Medical subjects and Science courses or £3,835 for foundation year for mainly Business, Humanities, Social Sciences for 2026/27 entrants (level 3 only before being moved to the above for Levels 4-6).
  • You have identified as Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, Showman, or Boater on your UCAS / enrolment application.

If eligible, this bursary is available for each year of your course.

Applications are limited, so please contact studentservices@chester.ac.uk for further details.

This information is correct at the time of publication. Unless otherwise stated, all bursaries are for students ordinarily resident in England, Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland.

Academic Year 2026/27

We provide several financial bursaries to support certain student groups studying at the University of Chester.

The bursaries we offer are:

  • Estranged
  • Care Experienced
  • Carers Support
  • Gypsy, Roma, Traveller, Showman, Boater

Our bursaries will be awarded to students who meet the eligibility criteria at the time of allocation.  Please note, meeting the eligibility criteria does not guarantee you’ll receive a bursary.

The full details and eligibility criteria of each bursary can be found at the end of this document; however, the below guidance applies to all our bursaries.  

Application forms are required for some bursaries, and we will ask you to complete a form for all awards confirming your address and contact preferences.

Assessment of awards

Application forms / contact preferences forms and evidence must be received by 31st January each year. Where the assessment for Estrangement is ongoing with Student Finance, this must be in progress at the 31st of January and completed by the 30th May in the academic year for us to make the award.

For awards made after the start of the 2025-26 academic year, you will be reassessed each academic year and will need to reapply and provide up to date evidence

Payment dates

We’ll pay bursary cash payments in three instalments:

  • Instalment 1: 5 December 2025 (TBC)
  • Instalment 2: 20 February 2026 (TBC)
  • Instalment 3: 22 May 2026 (TBC)

The dates are the earliest dates payments will be made, however please be aware there may be occasions when payments are unavoidably delayed.

Interruption of studies

Should you take an interruption of your studies, we’ll stop the payment of any bursary during this time.

Any unpaid instalments will be reinstated when you return to university and will be paid in line with the published payment dates for that academic year. Any fee waivers will be applied on a pro rata basis dependent on when your interruption begins and ends.

It’s your responsibility (the student’s) to advise the Your Money Team of your return to studies.

Withdrawal from programme of study

If you withdraw from your programme of study before receiving your full bursary award, you won’t be entitled to any further payments after the date of your withdrawal. Any Fee waivers will be applied on a pro rata basis dependent on the date your withdrawal starts.

Re-admission and Change of programme of study

If you change your programme of study (within the same academic year) but remain on a programme eligible to receive a bursary, your bursary and/or fee waiver will be transferred to your new programme of study as long as there has been no break in your studies.

If you change programme at the end of an academic year, without leaving due to academic failure, you can be considered for a bursary again at the same level.

If you change to a part time programme you will no longer receive a bursary, and any further payments will stop.

If you change your programme of study to a programme of study not eligible to receive a bursary, you won’t be entitled to any further payments after the date you changed your programme.

Please inform us at StudentServices@chester.ac.uk if you change your programme of study.

Transfer in from another institution

If you’ve transferred from another institution to the University of Chester, you may be eligible to receive our bursaries in line with our eligibility criteria.

Any Bursary will be paid as a proportion of the amount of time you study with us.

Failure to progress to the next level of your study

If you’re eligible to receive support, the bursary and/or fee waiver will be applied once in each level of your study. This means you’ll receive your award once during each academic year (level 3, level 4, level 5, level 6). 

Should you take an extra year to complete any level of your studies, you won’t be entitled to receive any award during this extra year.

Placement years

If you’re on a placement year, which is classed as an additional sandwich year to your studies, you won’t receive a bursary payment or fee waiver during your placement year.

If you undertake a year out of the university as a replacement for a year of university-based study, you’ll continue to receive your bursary payments.

Recovery of debt owed to the University.

If, at the end of an academic year, you’re in debt to the university for the payment of accommodation fees or tuition fees (including reassessment fees), we may recover this debt from your award.

If this happens, we’ll let you know the debt will be recovered in this way, prior to your award being paid.

Request for Review

You can find our review procedure here. (this is a link to the internal university Portal, you need to be a student to access this.  Please contact studentservices@chester.ac.uk with any queries).

Removal of a Bursary

We reserve the right to withdraw a bursary from you if you mislead the university about any aspect of your application or eligibility for an award.

We’ll seek repayment of any monies paid to you in this instance.

Overpayments

We reserve the right to recover any overpayment of a bursary and/or fee waiver made to you in error.

If this happens, we’ll contact you to advise an overpayment has been made and agree the repayment arrangement.

Changes to a bursary

We reserve the right to change the composition of our bursaries at any time during the academic year 2025/2026.

If the bursary composition is changed, the total value of bursary will stay the same.

Other information

In line with the principles of good administration, we treat all applications fairly and consistently under the terms we have set out in this document.

We’re required to undertake a regular evaluation of all our bursaries to measure the effectiveness of this support scheme.

To support this work, if you’ve received a bursary from the university, you’ll be required to complete an evaluation form to measure the impact of the bursary on your student experience. Completing this evaluation is a condition of any award made, and we’d be grateful if you could respond to this request as soon as possible when it’s made.