Discretionary Fund
The Discretionary Fund and the Nursing and Paramedic Discretionary Fund are available to support Home and Rest of UK students who are struggling financially with living and study costs. To apply, you must have taken out your full available support package from SAAS/Local Education Authority if applicable.
If you are an international student, please see struggling for money for further information.
For support towards IT equipment, please apply to the Digital Inclusion IT Equipment Loan Scheme.
Discretionary and Childcare Fund application forms
You can apply to the Discretionary Fund through your student portal on the My Finance page of MyPortal.
You must ensure your bank details are updated on the ‘My Finance’ section of your GCU Student Portal as per the Instructions for applying to Discretionary and/or Childcare Funds provided below which are specific to receiving Discretionary/Childcare funds. If this has not been updated, you will not receive any award made to your bank account. You will then get a verification email from finance, this may be time limited so please verify this as soon as you get the email, or your bank details will not be updated
If you are still experiencing problems submitting your application please send details of this to funding@gcu.ac.uk and state your name and student ID, and we will investigate this and get back to you.
How to apply
Please make sure you fully read the Instructions for applying to Discretionary and/or Childcare Funds (below) before starting your application.
Students who wish to apply to both the Discretionary Fund and Childcare Fund will need to complete a separate application for each fund.
Instructions for applying to Discretionary and/or Childcare Funds
Documents you may need to have ready before applying
If applying for the Childcare Fund, you will still need the form below to be completed by your childcare provider.
Applications usually take three to four weeks to fully process. Applications that are not fully completed, or missing relevant documentation will be moved to the end of the queue and this will result in a significant delay of possibly weeks in processing your application.
Please check the "Documents you may need to have ready before applying" link above to ensure you upload all the required documentation with your application.