National Scholarship Programme

The Government have created this initiative. The primary purpose of the National Scholarship Programme (NSP) is to benefit individual students from lower income households directly as they enter higher education (HE). It will apply to students entering HE from autumn 2012.

The Government have set the following eligibility criteria:

The fund is open only to students who have a household income of under £25,000, although we stress that we have limited funds available so you should not assume that a household income of under £25,000 will guarantee an award.
If you have any formal sponsorship agreement you will not be eligible for a NSP award. Formal sponsorship does not include SLC tuition fee loans or personal agreements with relatives.
You will have to be new to Higher Education in autumn 2012 to be eligible. Students transferring course, transferring institution or restarting a course will not be eligible.
Only students who are living in England and the EU (but outside the UK) are eligible. This award is not available to students from other UK administrations e.g. Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales or to students from Islands administrations or to Overseas students from outside the EU.
EU students will not be eligible to receive the maintenance element of the award (a cash award of up to £1,000) but can receive a tuition fee waiver.
Students undertaking post-graduate qualifications, including postgraduate initial teacher training (ITT) courses leading to qualified teacher status (QTS) will not be eligible.
Students must be paying more than £6,000 (full-time) or £2,250 (part-time) tuition fees.
Part-time students must be studying 25% intensity or more. This means that part time students will need to be taking at least two standard weighted modules. Also, students studying part time will receive an award value that is calculated in proportion to the full time award value and can not take this award as a cash award, only as a fee waiver.

Bath Spa University has been given Government funding to enable us to offer NSP awards, which we have matched so that in total we will be able to offer the equivalent of 174 awards of £3,000. To enable us to fairly distribute the limited number of awards we need to add aditional criteria as follows;

Students who are in receipt of Special Support Grant who also have assessed household income of less than £25,000.
Care leavers
Foyer students
Any remaining funds will be distributed prioritising students with the lowest household incomes who come from areas of particular educational deprivation.

Application process

There is no application process for full time students as we are able to use the information from Student Support assessments. However, you must ensure that you do apply for student support funding as soon as possible to enable your household income to be assessed by the end of September to enable awards to be made in October. You must ensure that you and your sponsors do not decline to share household income information for bursary and scholarship purposes. Sponsors are usually parents but can be anyone who gives their income on your funding application. To enable students to receive maximum benefit from the additional funding we must make these awards in October. Students who fail to have their student support application assessed by then can not be assessed for one of these awards because their household income will not be available to us. Because of this they will not receive an award even if they are later shown to be eligible.

Part time students who are studying at least two standard weighted modules will be asked to fill out a form to declare their household income and will be asked to provide documented proof of this declared household income. This will be assessed and eligible students will be included in the awards process. One of the Government criteria for NSP awards for part time students is that part time students should only receive their award as a fee waiver. Part time students will receive a proportion of the full award that is equal to the proportion of their tuition fee to the full time fee for the same course. e.g. if your fee is £4,500 and the full time fee is £9,000 you will receive a fee waiver of £1,500.

Award value

English Domiciled Full-time students

A £3,000 award. The award will be made up of a £1,000 cash payment (maintenance award), paid direct to you in instalments, together with a £2,000 tuition fee waiver.
Students given a NSP award will not be eligible for a BSU bursary (max. £500.00) even if they were previously assessed as eligible for a BSU bursary.

Full Time EU students excluding UK students

EU students will receive a NSP tuition fee waiver of £3,000. The maintenance element (cash award) of the NSP is not available to full-time EU students.
Students given a NSP award will not be eligible for a BSU bursary (max. £500.00) even if they were previously assessed as eligible for a BSU bursary.

English Domiciled Part-time students

Part-time students studying more than 25% intensity (2 standard modules or more) will receive a pro-rota NSP tuition fee waiver linked to the level of their tuition fee. For example a student studying 50% of a full-time course which has a tuition fee of £4,500 will receive a tuition fee waiver of £1,500. The maintenance element (cash award) of the NSP is not available to students following a part-time course.
Part-time students are not eligible for a BSU bursary.

Duration of award

NSP awards are only payable in your first year of study. However, if you receive a NSP award in your first year and you are a full-time student, you will receive a follow on award of £500.00 in your second and third years. In these years you may also become eligible for the Bath Spa University Bursary, subject to meeting the eligibility criteria.

Cash award payment dates

If successful any cash award will be paid automatically to you by the SLC, who are acting as our agents for NSP payments.

NSP cash awards will be paid in three instalments as follows:

Payment Date	Amount Due
21^st November	£350
21^st February	£350
21^st May	£300

Fee waiver process

NSP fee waivers will be applied to student fee accounts during January 2013. Students who leave or suspend their studies before this time will not benefit from the fee waiver. This process will be managed by an electronic exchange of information between the University and the SLC. This will automatically reduce your fee loan and you will not have to do anything. However, if you think that this has not been completed or you think that an error has been made please contact income@bathspa.ac.uk.