Guidance

Residential Bursary Fund: 2025 to 2026

Published 2 April 2025

Applies to England

1. Important points

The Residential Bursary Fund (RBF) is intended to support students who are participating in a designated specialist subject area. Mostly, but not exclusively, this is land-based provision. We expect most students receiving RBF will be studying in the designated specialist subject area for which the institution was awarded RBF.

We do not expect students to whom the institution awards RBF to be participating in general further education (FE) provision that is widely available, for example, A levels or vocational qualifications. Any such use should be a genuine exception based on individual student circumstances.

RBF is designed to provide a contribution to an eligible student’s accommodation costs, and the Department for Education (DfE) expects most of an institution’s RBF allocation to be used for this purpose. RBF can be used to help with travel costs between the student’s term time lodgings (if they are not on campus) and the institution where appropriate. RBF cannot be used for travel costs for non-residential students (home to institution travel).

RBF is part of the wider suite of student financial support funding that we provide including the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund and free meals in FE. Like those schemes, RBF helps individual students overcome financial barriers to participation. If a student leaves their study programme part way through the year, the institution must stop RBF payments as they would any other student financial support.

References to ‘we’ or ‘us’ in this guidance are to DfE. Where we refer to ‘you’ this means education institutions (colleges, schools, academies, for example).

You are required to complete a short data/management information return each October to confirm the number of students supported by RBF and the amount spent during the previous academic year. You are required to explain the reasons for any overspend on the return and may also add any additional information you wish to provide to us. The requirement to submit information for audit, reconciliation and to support allocation processes forms part of funding agreements.

2. Summary

RBF provides financial help towards the costs of accommodation for students attending one of the designated institutions delivering specialist provision. We define specialist provision in this context as not available locally and/or requires the student to attend at unsociable hours on a regular basis and consequently the student needs to live away from home.

RBF enables young people to gain a substantial qualification in a specialist subject. RBF should not be used to enable a student to participate in general FE provision that is widely available or to enable them to participate in additional activity, for example, to take part in a specific sport.

RBF provides a contribution towards residential costs. You should target the funding at students they assess face the most significant financial barriers to participation. RBF is not intended to provide support to all students on residentially delivered provision, or to necessarily cover the full costs for each student.

Where institutions use RBF for travel costs for residential students living off campus (between term time lodgings and the institution), the amount you spend must not exceed 15% of your total RBF allocation. To make sure RBF maintains its primary focus on residential support, spend on travel is also capped at £25,000. This means that where 15% of the institution’s allocation would be greater than £25,000, the maximum the institution can spend is £25,000.

3. Eligibility criteria

3.1 Age

• for academic year 2025 to 2026, students must be aged 16 or over but under 19 on 31 August 2025
• students aged 19 or over are only eligible for RBF if they are continuing on a study programme they began aged 16 to 18 (‘19+ continuers’) or have an education, health, and care (EHC) plan

3.2 Residency

Students must meet the residency criteria in our DfE funding rules for post-16 provision. Our funding regulations specify the evidence institutions must see and retain for audit to confirm eligibility.

3.3 Household income

Individual institutions have discretion to set their own RBF policies. Institutions must, however, ensure RBF support is targeted at those students who are facing the most significant financial barriers to participation.

You must assess the student’s actual need for help with residential costs, taking account of their household income when deciding how much RBF to award. Household income must be verified by evidence, for example, an award notice showing receipt of benefits, a P60, Tax Credit Award Notice, evidence of self-employment income.

3.4 Eligible education provision

RBF is designed to enable students to gain a substantial qualification in a specialist subject area and we expect most students awarded RBF to be enrolled in the specialist subject area for which the institution was awarded RBF.

Any use of RBF to support students enrolled in widely available general FE provision must be a genuine exception based on individual student circumstances. You must not award RBF simply to enable a student to participate in additional activity (for example, to take part in a specific sport) or to enable a student to attend a particular institution when the qualification they are studying is widely available.

Young people on any paid education, training or apprenticeship programmes are not eligible for RBF support.

4. Applications and assessment

Students apply to their chosen institution using the application form the institution has developed for RBF. It is the responsibility of institutions to decide which students receive RBF and how much RBF they are awarded. You must manage the number and size of RBF awards you make to keep within your budget.

You must publish a statement setting out your RBF policy so students understand the criteria against which they will be assessed. The statement should be published early enough for students to be able to use the information when deciding which post-16 institution to attend. Your policy must be clear and available to students and to us.

You should take account of equalities legislation in your RBF policies. This means you must not discriminate against your students based on their protected characteristics. You are also subject to the public sector equality duty in section 149 (1) of the Equality Act 2010.

Students must meet all the eligibility criteria to be eligible, with the institution’s decision based on their household income and their actual need for help.

Where students’ accommodation is off campus, you may use RBF to help with the cost of travel from term time lodgings to site (up to a maximum of 15% of your allocation, capped at £25,000). The use of RBF for travel costs does not replace the statutory duty on local authorities to set out, in an annually published transport statement, the arrangements you will make to facilitate the participation in education or training of young people of sixth form age.

4.1 Payments

RBF payments for accommodation must be made directly to the student’s landlord. The landlord may be the institution itself if they provide accommodation directly or a private landlord. No payments should be made directly to the student as these payments would be subject to the Social Security Amendment (Students and Income related Benefits) Regulations 2000.

4.2 What RBF cannot be used for

You should not use RBF for any purpose designed to give you a competitive advantage over other institutions. RBF should not be used for:

• fees for access to college facilities
• block subsidy of transport
• costs that are in the scope of the 16 to 19 Bursary Fund
• childcare costs that are in the scope of the Care to Learn scheme

4.3 RBF should not be awarded:

• simply because a student is enrolled in residentially delivered provision
• to students studying programmes that are widely available unless there are genuinely exceptional circumstances that make this appropriate for an individual student
• to enable students to access additional activity, such as participating in a specific sport
• to enable a student to attend a particular institution in cases where the provision they are studying is widely available

4.4 In year changes

You may wish to keep a contingency fund to respond to needs that come up later in the academic year, for example, a change in a student’s circumstances, rather than allocating all funds at the start of the year.

Where students leave part way through the year, their RBF payments should stop in the same way as payments from any other student financial support scheme. If the institution requires a student who leaves early to make a payment to cover the accommodation cost to the end of the term, for example, you must ensure this is made clear to students as part of your RBF application process.

Where students change study programme part way through the academic year, for example, they enrolled on a specialist programme but swap to a general FE programme, you should consider the specific circumstances when deciding whether RBF should continue. You should not automatically continue with RBF payments without review.

5. Funding and allocations

We have calculated RBF allocations for academic year 2025 to 2026 using the methodology below:

5.1 For institutions that spent at least 90% of their 2023 to 2024 allocation

We have added 5% growth to their 2024 to 2025 allocated amount to generate the 2025 to 2026 allocation.

5.2 For institutions that spent less than 90% of their 2023 to 2024 allocation

We have applied a 5% reduction to their 2024 to 2025 allocated amount to generate the 2025 to 2026 allocation.

5.3 Exceptions

We have made exceptions where the outcome of the calculation generates an allocation that is greater than both 2023 to 2024 actual spend and the 2024 to 2025 allocation. In these instances, the 2025 to 2026 allocation is the same as the 2024 to 2025 allocation.

The allocations methodology disregards any spend by institutions that is outside policy guidelines (inappropriate use of RBF for travel for non-resident students or any administrative spend reported that is more than 5% of the allocation, for example). We may also disregard spend by institutions where RBF is being used to support students on non-specialist provision.

You may use up to 5% of your RBF allocation to cover administrative costs. The 5% must be based on the allocation total; it is not an additional 5% on top of the allocation total. Any spend above 5% that is reported in the end year data/ management information return will be disregarded.

5.4 Payments

We will pay allocations for the academic year to institutions in 2 parts: two thirds in August 2025 and one third in April 2026.

You should use the funding allocated to you for RBF solely to support eligible students with residential costs in line with RBF policy. Institutions are not permitted to transfer any funds to or from RBF and any other student support scheme provided by us.

You may top up RBF from your own sources if you choose to do so.

5.5 Recovery of unspent funds

Where institutions identify that they will be unable to spend the majority of their RBF allocation, you should notify us as soon as possible to arrange to repay the excess via our customer help portal.

We will reconcile RBF funding at the end of the academic year, after we have analysed data returns. We will recover all unspent funds, and funding cannot be carried forward to future years.

6. Individualised learner record and data returns/management information requirements

It is important to complete the individualised learner record (ILR) accurately to indicate the numbers of students getting residential support from RBF. More information about the student support codes can be found in the ILR specification. We will use this information to inform future allocations.

Institutions are required to complete a short data/management information return each October to confirm the number of students supported by RBF and the amount spent during the previous academic year. You are required to explain the reasons for any overspend on the return and may also add any additional information you wish to provide to us. The data return will be used for reconciliation. Unspent funds will be recovered.

The data return also requires institutions to report the study programme core aims for their RBF supported students. This should be the aim recorded in the ILR. Any use of RBF for general FE provision rather than the specialist subject areas must be explained.

The requirement to submit information for audit, reconciliation and to support allocation processes forms part of funding agreements. Institutions who fail to complete the return by the deadline (specified on the data return form) will be subject to recovery of RBF funds in full.

Where the data return indicates institutions are routinely awarding RBF to students enrolled in mainstream FE rather than the specialist provision for which they were awarded RBF, we will recover funds and/or decide to make no further RBF allocations to the institution.

Where an institution reports an overspend on RBF through the data return, it is important to note that we cannot guarantee any reimbursement as this is dependent on funds becoming available from other institutions for redistribution. We will not reimburse any overspend that is outside the funding rules as set out in this guide.

7. Audit and assurance

RBF is subject to normal assurance arrangements for 16 to 19 education and training. Institutions must ensure they have appropriate processes in place to record RBF applications and awards (including the number, value, purpose, whether awarded or not, and a brief justification for the decision).

Institutions must ensure they can evidence their application process, how the student was assessed, how they made the decision to award the specific amount of RBF and the funds that they have issued for the student’s costs.

Auditors will be looking for evidence that institutions have applied their RBF eligibility criteria correctly and used a transparent and consistent application and assessment process for all students.

You must:

• retain copies of any documents the student has signed to give formal agreement to their conditions for payment
• retain hard or scanned copies of documentation for 6 years (records can be kept electronically)
• note that following an audit, we might recover funding where RBF payments are found not to have been made in accordance with this guide

8. Institutions responsibilities in managing complaints or appeals

Any student or parent who is unhappy with how an institution has managed their application for RBF should follow the institution’s own complaints procedure.

You should explain to students how they can complain or appeal about any decision relating to RBF support and/or the way in which their application for RBF support was managed.

We do not have a role in the administration of RBF because this is the responsibility of individual institutions. As such, we do not usually get involved with complaints and you must not advise parents/students to contact us instead of managing the complaint internally. However, we may get involved if there is an allegation that the RBF eligibility criteria or any content within this guide is being seriously disregarded.

9. Further information

If you have any questions about the allocation and administration of RBF, please use our customer help portal.