Care-Experienced Students in Scotland: The £9,000 Bursary and University Support

Scotland offers the most generous financial support for care-experienced students anywhere in the UK. A £9,000 non-repayable bursary, free tuition, year-round accommodation, and a network of legal obligations on universities to look after you. If you are care-experienced and considering university, the money side is better than most people realise. Here’s the full picture.

Who counts as care experienced?

The definition is deliberately broad. You are care-experienced if you have ever been looked after by a local authority (council) before turning 18, for any length of time. That includes:

• Looked after at home on a Compulsory Supervision Order
• Foster care (a placement arranged by the local authority)
• Kinship care (placed with a relative or family friend by the local authority)
• Residential care (children’s homes, residential units)
• Secure care

There is no minimum duration. If you were in care for three months at age five or for ten years through your whole childhood, you qualify. It does not matter whether the care was voluntary or compulsory, or whether it was arranged by a Scottish local authority or elsewhere in the UK.

The £9,000 bursary — how it works

The care-experienced bursary replaces the standard income-assessed bursary. It does not sit on top of it. Here is what that means in practice:

• £9,000 per year, paid in monthly instalments from September to May (nine payments of £1,000).
• Entirely non-repayable. The bursary has no loan component; an optional, non-income-assessed student loan is offered alongside it, and you decide whether to take it.
• No income assessment. Unlike the standard SAAS bursary, which is means-tested on household income, the care-experienced bursary is universal. Every care-experienced student gets the same £9,000 regardless of any other income.
• Available for the full course — typically four years for a Scottish undergraduate degree, plus one additional funded year if you need to repeat.
• Tuition fees paid separately on top — SAAS still pays the £1,820 tuition fee directly to the university, the same as for any other Scottish student.

How to apply

Applying is straightforward. You do it through SAAS, the same system every Scottish student uses.

1. Create a SAAS account at saas.gov.uk (or log in if you already have one).
2. Complete the standard application for your course and university.
3. Tell SAAS you are care-experienced on the application form.
4. Complete the Evidence of Care Experience form — SAAS emails it to you once your application arrives. One section must be completed and signed by a professional who can confirm your circumstances, and SAAS will help if you need it. You only provide this evidence in the first year you apply for the bursary.
5. Your bursary is confirmed — your award notice in your SAAS Account shows the bursary payment schedule.

University support beyond the money

The bursary is the headline, but Scottish universities also provide a network of practical support that matters just as much. Under the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014, universities are named as corporate parents — which means they have legal duties towards care leavers under 26 who were looked after on or after their 16th birthday, not just goodwill.

In practice, this translates to:

Year-round accommodation

Most universities guarantee care-experienced students 365-day accommodation. Standard halls contracts run from September to June, meaning most students are evicted over summer. Care-experienced students are not. You keep your room (or are offered alternative university accommodation) through the summer vacation, and SAAS's Summer Accommodation Grant — a fixed amount paid to you — helps with the cost.

Named contacts and dedicated support

Every Scottish university has a named contact or dedicated support team for care-experienced students. This person is your first point of call for anything — academic issues, financial problems, housing, mental health, or just navigating the bureaucracy. They know the system and they know who else to call.

Priority access and adjusted entry

Most Scottish universities operate contextual admissions or specific access schemes for care-experienced applicants. This can mean:

• Lower grade offers (for example, an offer of BBB instead of the standard ABB)
• Guaranteed interview or application review
• Pre-entry summer schools and bridging programmes
• Articulation routes from college with reserved places

The exact scheme varies by university, but the direction is consistent across the sector. The Scottish Funding Council tracks care-experienced enrolment, and universities report on it publicly.

Council tax exemption

Full-time students are already exempt from council tax. But care-experienced students who live alone or only with other students benefit from this particularly — there is no household to absorb the cost. If you are in private rented accommodation, your council tax exemption certificate comes from the university.

Hardship funds and emergency support

Universities hold discretionary funds for students in financial difficulty. Care-experienced students typically have priority access to these funds, and the threshold for approval is lower. If something goes wrong mid-term — a laptop breaks, an unexpected cost hits — the hardship fund exists precisely for this.

EMA before university

If you are care-experienced and still in school (S5 or S6) or at college, you can claim EMA — the Education Maintenance Allowance — worth £30 per week during term time. EMA is means-tested on household income, but for care-experienced young people in foster or residential care, the local authority’s income is not counted as household income. In practice, most care-experienced 16–19 year olds qualify automatically.

EMA and the SAAS bursary cover different stages of education. You can receive EMA in S5 and S6, then move to the £9,000 bursary when you start university. There is no conflict between them.

See our full EMA guide for thresholds, application details and the attendance conditions.

What the numbers don't tell you

Scotland’s care-experienced bursary is genuinely exceptional. £9,000 a year, fully non-repayable, no income test, for the full length of the degree. No other part of the UK comes close. A care-experienced student graduating from a four-year Scottish degree can leave with zero SAAS debt, by not taking the optional loan. A standard Scottish student from the lowest-income household leaves with roughly £20,000–£30,000 in loan repayments. An English student leaves with £45,000+.

But the money alone does not solve everything. Care-experienced students face challenges that a bursary cannot fix — instability, gaps in schooling, lack of family support networks, mental health difficulties that stem from childhood experiences. The attainment gap between care-experienced and non-care-experienced students remains real, and the dropout rate is higher.

What Scotland has done well is combine the financial support with legal obligations on universities to provide the wraparound care that makes the difference. Named contacts, year-round housing, priority access — these are how universities meet the general duties the corporate parenting legislation places on them (to promote care leavers' interests, assess their needs and help them access opportunities), rather than goodwill. Whether every university delivers on those duties with equal commitment is a fair question, but the legal framework is stronger here than anywhere else in the UK.

If you are care-experienced, or if you are a carer, kinship carer, foster carer or social worker supporting a young person who is — apply. The worst that happens is a conversation with SAAS. The best is a fully funded degree with zero debt and a university that is legally required to look after you.

The takeaway

• £9,000 per year, non-repayable, no income assessment, for the full degree — with an optional student loan alongside.
• Tuition fees paid separately by SAAS — you pay nothing.
• Year-round accommodation, named support contacts, priority access schemes, and hardship funds.
• Apply through SAAS — tell SAAS you are care-experienced and return the Evidence of Care Experience form. Apply by 30 June.
• EMA available for care-experienced 16–19 year olds still in school or college.
• Corporate parenting duties mean universities have legal duties towards care leavers under 26 — not just goodwill.