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You can get a funeral support payment from Social Security Scotland to help with burial or cremation costs for a partner, family member or friend. It has to be reasonable for you to accept responsibility for the costs, and this requires looking at factors including whether it is more reasonable for someone closer to the person who has died to take responsibility. You can apply up to six months after the funeral takes place. There are no special rules for students.

You must get one of the following qualifying benefits:1

• universal credit (including if you got this in the last month and it has now stopped);
• pension credit;
• housing benefit.

See cpag.org.uk/scottish-benefits for more information. You can apply online, by phone on 0800 182 2222 or by downloading a paper form. Go to mygov.scot/funeral-support-payment/how-to-apply for more information or to start an application.

You can get a budgeting loan from DWP to help you pay for certain items – eg, furniture, clothes, removal expenses, rent in advance, home improvements, travelling expenses, maternity expenses, funeral expenses and jobseeking expenses. If you are claiming universal credit, you must apply for a budgeting advance instead of a budgeting loan (see here). There are no special rules for students. The loan/advance is then repaid from ongoing benefit payments.

The amount of budgeting loan you can get depends on the size of your family. To qualify, you must have been getting pension credit for at least 26 weeks before your claim is decided.

See CPAG’s Welfare Benefits Handbook for details of who can get a loan and how to apply.

Local authorities administer the Scottish Welfare Fund. This comprises community care grants to help people remain in or establish themselves in the community and crisis grants for people without money because of a disaster or emergency. To qualify, you must be on a low income. You may get a crisis grant, for example, if you are on a low income and there has been a disaster like a fire or a flood, or you have lost money that you needed to live on. Students are not excluded from applying to the Scottish Welfare Fund. More information, including how to apply, is at mygov.scot/scottish-welfare-fund.

A care leaver payment is available from 1 April 2026 from the local authority for young people moving on from care. It is a one-off payment of £2,000.

You are eligible if you were looked after by the local authority on or after your 16th birthday, and you stopped being looked after on or after 1 April 2026. It is also available for some young people who were in continuing care.

You do not have to make a claim for the care leaver payment. The local authority that last looked after you should identify that you are entitled and notify you about how the payment will be made.

There’s more information about this at cpag.org.uk/welfare-rights/benefits-scotland/scottish-benefits/children-young-people/care-leaver-payment.

If you think a decision about your Scottish child payment, Best Start grant or funeral support payment is wrong, you can ask Social Security Scotland (SSS) to look at it again. This process is known as a ‘redetermination’. The time limit is usually 31 days from the decision being notified to you. If you are still not happy when you get the further decision, you can appeal to the independent First-tier Tribunal. If it was not possible to ask SSS to redetermine the decision within 31 days, you can ask for a late redetermination (within one year), explaining why it is late.

You can ask SSS for a review if you don’t agree with a decision about Best Start foods, but there is no right of appeal.

You can ask for a review of a budgeting loan decision within 28 days of the day the decision was issued to you (or sometimes later, if you have special reasons or if there is a mistake in the decision about the law or the facts of your case).

You can ask for a review of a Scottish Welfare Fund decision within 20 days (or later if you have good reasons for asking for this late). If you are still not happy, you can ask for the decision to be looked at again by the Scottish Public Services Ombudsman (spso.org.uk).

This chapter outlines the support available for people studying in Scotland who are eligible for student support under the Scottish system. It lists the type of support available, but it does not describe the rules for qualifying for that support in any detail – eg, residence rules. For where to find information on claiming student support and how much you may get, see Appendix 2. See Chapter 12 for how student support affects universal credit, Chapter 13 for how it affects other means-tested benefits, and Chapter 14 for how it affects health benefits.

• Most full-time undergraduate students are eligible for a student loan, and they may also get a bursary and living costs grant.
• Full-time students in non-advanced education may be eligible for a bursary maintenance allowance and grants for travel and study costs.
• Part-time students may get help with fees and other limited support.
• Care-experienced students (students who have been in local authority care) may get a care-experienced students’ bursary.

This section is for full-time undergraduate degree students (including allied health profession students) and full-time students on Higher National Certificate (HNC)/Higher National Diploma (HND) courses. It is also relevant for full-time students on Professional Graduate Diploma in Education courses. Funding is different for other full-time postgraduates (see here) and for paramedic, nursing and midwifery students (see here).

Student support from Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) is made up of:1

• tuition fees;
• student loan for maintenance;
• special support loan;
• care-experienced students’ bursary;
• young students’ bursary;
• independent students’ bursary;
• estranged students’ bursary;
• lone parents’ grant;
• summer accommodation grant;
• disabled students’ allowance.

In addition, your college or university administers a:

• higher education (HE) discretionary fund;
• childcare fund, including lone parents’ childcare grant.

Travel expenses are not covered, except for students doing a placement on an allied health profession, paramedic, midwifery or nursing course, and for disabled students who cannot use public transport.

Adult disability payment (ADP) is a benefit for people with a disability. It replaces personal independence payment for people of working age in Scotland.

Children who have a disability can claim child disability payment in Scotland.

ADP is not means tested, so it is not reduced because of your student support or other income. It comprises two components: for daily living and mobility. Each component has two rates: a standard rate and an enhanced rate.

Weekly rate from April 2026

Claim adult disability payment (ADP) online at mygov.scot/adult-disability-payment/how-to-apply or phone 0800 182 2222 to ask for a paper claim form to be sent to you. Claims cannot generally be backdated, so claim as soon as you think you qualify.

The claim is in two parts. If you phone, some basic information is taken from you to complete part one. You are then sent a form on which to give more information about your condition and how it affects you. You must normally return this form within eight weeks. If you claim online you have two weeks to complete part one and a further eight weeks to complete part two. You can ask for the eight weeks to be extended.

A determination on your claim should be made within eight to 10 weeks.

ADP is usually paid directly into your bank account, and it is paid every four weeks in arrears.