Help if you're a student with a learning difficulty, health problem or disability
How to apply
How you apply for Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) depends on whether you’re studying full-time or part-time.
Full-time undergraduate students
If you’re applying for other types of student finance, you only need to apply for DSA once. Otherwise, you’ll need to apply each year.
If you’ve already applied for student finance
Sign in to your student finance account to start your DSA application.
The application for DSA should be on your ‘to-do list’ if you chose DSA in your application for other support. If it is not, select ‘change your circumstances’ to apply.
If you do not have an online account because you applied for student finance by post, fill in a DSA slim form:
If you have not applied for student finance
You can apply for DSA when you apply for student finance online.
If you do not need student finance, you can fill in a DSA1 form to apply just for DSA:
You cannot apply for student finance online once you’ve applied for DSA.
Postgraduate students and part-time undergraduate students
Fill in a DSA1 form for part-time and postgraduate students to apply for DSA. You’ll need to apply for DSA each year.
If you’re already getting DSA
Fill in a DSA expenses claim form to claim back your expenses:
How long it takes
You’ll get confirmation of whether your application is successful within 6 weeks.
It can take up to 14 weeks to get your DSA support in place as this is done separately.
You can check current application processing times to find out when you can expect to get an update on your application.