This petition was submitted during the 2019-2024 parliament
Rejected petition Award the SFE Grant to distance learners who are putting in full time hours.
All distance learning courses are classified as part time despite most people completing 120 credits a year which is in fact full time and on par with students attending university daily. The disabled, parents, mature students etc. - are losing out on the SFE grant due to this misclassification.
More details
We would like the term 'part time' removed for 'distance learning' university courses which discriminated against those unable to attend university through disability, family, commitments etc. Distance learners work very hard to balance home life and educate themselves to better our workforce and as such should be financially treated equally with those able to attend universities daily. The loss of the grant for these distance learners is significant because of misclassification.
This petition was rejected
Why was this petition rejected?
It’s not clear what the petition is asking the UK Government or Parliament to do.
The Government no longer provides grants for higher education, whether these are full-time, part-time or distance learning.
The Government does provide loans for tuition fees, which cover full-time and part-time students, even if these involve distance learning. The Government also provides maintenance loans, but you can only apply for a Maintenance Loan as a Distance Learning student if you cannot attend your course in person because of a disability.
We could accept a petition calling on the Government to make Student Finance maintenance loans available to all Distance Learning students, if that's what you want to happen.
We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.