Unum access to university bursary
Birkbeck is pleased to partner with Unum to offer five £1000 bursaries, for students who will be studying at Birkbeck during the 2018-19 academic year. The bursary is designed to offer assistance to five students who are in need of extra financial support to undertake their degree.
Eligibility
You can study at any of the following levels (part-time or full-time) and apply for the bursary: undergraduate, Foundation Degree, Certificate of Higher Education, Higher Education Introductory Studies and foundation year courses.
Bursaries will be awarded to students who meet all three of the initial criteria and two or more of the secondary criteria and submit a strong application essay.
Initial criteria (you need to meet all of these criteria)
- Your annual household income must be below £25,000.
- You must have attended a Birkbeck Outreach or IntoUniversity event or programme of events before you apply (attendance will be confirmed by the Birkbeck outreach team and IntoUniversity centre managers):
- Eligible Outreach events:
- Get Started Workshops
- Future Focus Workshops
- Birkbeck Big Ideas lectures
- Get Talking Mentoring programmes
- any other Birkbeck event/course hosted at the 639 centre in Haringey.
- Eligible IntoUniversity events/programmes:
- any IntoWork event
- IntoUniversity academic support
- the FOCUS programme
- the Mentoring programme.
- All students: You must also be eligible to receive a tuition fee loan from Student Finance England and have consented/will consent to the sharing of data submitted to the Student Loans Company.
Secondary criteria (you need to meet two or more of these)
- You must be:
- the first in your family to attend university
- Black, Asian or minority ethnic
- over 21 years old
- classified as disabled
- a Care leaver.
- You must:
- hold non-traditional entry route qualifications
- have limited or poor prior attainment
- have no qualifications higher than Level 2 (ie GCSE or equivalent).
How to apply
- You need to make an application for a course to Birkbeck. Once you receive an offer from Birkbeck, you should submit an essay of no more than 300 words.
- The essay should detail why you are the ideal candidate to receive this bursary, and how it will enhance your studies at Birkbeck. You may want to cover the following areas in your application essay:
- why you’ve decided to study your course
- what has made you come back to education
- what were the barriers you faced before
- how Birkbeck, University of London or IntoUniversity events supported you with making your university decision.
- All students: download a copy of the application form and email the completed form, along with your application essay, to getstarted@bbk.ac.uk.
- Part-time students only: in addition, please download the cash bursary cover sheet and submit this with your proof of income.
Deadlines
- 31 August 2018: Deadline for all applications.
- 21 September 2018: Bursary applicants selected. All applicants will be informed of the decision in relation to their application. Please note that all decisions will be final.
Bursary payment schedule
- Bursary payments will be made three weeks after the start of each term that you are attending your course and directly into your bank account by BACS transfer.
- You will only receive payment after your course has started; therefore, if your course does not start until the spring (January) or summer term (April), you will not receive any payments prior to this.