Income based ESA and student maintenance loan

wonderquine
wonderquine Online Community Member Posts: 3 Listener
edited July 2023 in Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
I'm the appointee for my 28 year old autistic son. He has been attending college for a few years now but his course in the last two years has been at higher education level so we applied to student finance to cover his fees but we did not apply for a maintenance loan as he was in receipt of income based ESA so didn't feel it was necessary. I've since came across a couple of websites saying that even if you didn't take the loan but you were eligible that ESA would still be affected.

I decided to research as I got a letter this morning saying i have a compliance interview next week. Will he have to pay back all his ESA payments from the last two years?

Comments

  • poppy123456
    poppy123456 Online Community Member Posts: 64,463 Championing
    Any maintenance loan available to him will affect his Income Related ESA even if he didn't take that loan. You should have also reported the changes when he became a student. Any overpayment will need to be repaid back.

    Is it a full time course he's doing? Does he claim a disability benefit such as PIP or DLA?
  • wonderquine
    wonderquine Online Community Member Posts: 3 Listener
    Hi, yes he received PIP. I informed them a while back that he was studying, but at a lower level. Stupidly I didn’t know that I needed to update them when he started studying at a higher level. I’m dreading finding out how much the overpayment will be.
  • bg844
    bg844 Online Community Member Posts: 3,883 Championing
    Remember that PIP is unaffected as it’s not means-tested and it isn’t a change that needs to be reported.
  • poppy123456
    poppy123456 Online Community Member Posts: 64,463 Championing
    He can continue with the ESA claim as well as be a student but the student loan will affect the ESA, whether there's any entitlement to ESA will depend on how much student loan he would have been entitled to.
  • wonderquine
    wonderquine Online Community Member Posts: 3 Listener
    Thank you
  • theonelemon
    theonelemon Online Community Member Posts: 15 Listener

    If you receive a £0 maintenance loan, your ESA will not be affected as long as you are claiming the "Income-related" component of ESA, as the loan amount is considered income when calculating your entitlement, meaning even if you get no loan, it will still be factored in as zero income; however, it's crucial to inform your benefits agency about your student status to avoid potential issues

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