Officially Outstanding - Read MoreFunding Support and College Bursaries for 2025-26
What is the purpose of the Adult Skills Fund (ASF)?
Introduction to the Adult Skills Fund
The purpose of The Adult Skills Fund is to support adult learners to gain skills which will lead them to meaningful, sustained, and relevant employment, or enable them to progress to further learning which will deliver that outcome.
ASF Funding Rules 2025-2026
ASF no longer uses prior attainment as an eligibility criterion for the policy entitlements. Learners can be fully funded if they meet the residency eligibility criteria, are aged 19 and over and earn below the earnings threshold or are unemployed*. Cornwall College will fully fund learners who are unemployed*, employed, or self-employed, up to and including level 2 and the level 3 offers, if they earn below the devolved and non-devolved thresholds as detailed below.
Devolved areas
- Learners must be resident or have a main permanent home in Cornwall on the first day of their course.
- Earn less than £26,009 annual gross salary
- Individuals who are 19+ at the beginning of the academic year (31st August 2025)
- Continuing learners who are resident in devolved authority areas, who have not completed their learning by 31 July 2025, but started their learning before the authorities’ devolution date with providers who have an Education and Skills Funding agreement (grant) only
- Individuals who are not currently receiving Adult Skills funding for another course
- Learners will need to have the right to study in the UK.
Non-devolved areas
- Learners must be resident or have a main permanent home in the UK on the first day of their course (excluding Cornwall and other devolved areas in the UK).
- Earn less than £25,750 annual gross salary
- Individuals who are 19+ at the beginning of the academic year (31st August 2025)
- Continuing learners who are resident in devolved authority areas, who have not completed their learning by 31 July 2025, but started their learning before the authorities’ devolution date with providers who have an Education and Skills Funding agreement (grant) only
- Individuals who are not currently receiving Adult Skills funding for another course
- Learners will need to have the right to study in the UK.
Bursaries available for 2025-26
The Cornwall College Group (TCCG) is committed to helping as many adults as possible to access our courses. Dependent upon how your course is funded, we may be able to offer financial support towards travel, course fees, childcare, essential equipment and much more.
Further Education Bursaries for Adults (19+)
If your individual income is £32,000 or less, per year, then you could be eligible for a College Bursary to offer financial support towards travel costs, childcare, essential equipment and access to hardship funds. We have limited funds available, so please apply as soon as possible. If you apply late and all funds have been allocated, we may not be able to provide financial support to you.
How do I apply for a college bursary?
It is easy to apply for a college bursary and you can now do this online and directly upload your household income evidence to our online portal. This can be done on a PC or a phone or tablet.
Please watch our demonstration video which takes you through the steps needed to apply for your bursary. Alongside this please read through our FE Financial Support Guide to see what household income evidence we require from you to confirm your award.
How can I apply for Hardship support?
If you are experiencing an unforeseen financial difficulty, that is impacting your studies, we may be able to support you with a cash payment via our hardship fund. To apply please click here and complete the application. Once completed, please email a copy to bursaries@cornwall.ac.uk or hand in to your Student Experience Manager.
Once we have assessed your application, we will contact you by email to let you know the outcome of your bursary application.
FAQ’s
- You must live more than 3 miles from your chosen campus to be eligible for any transport assistance.
- If eligible, we will pay you a mileage allowance of 30 pence per mile, for your timetabled college sessions. The allowance will be paid to you monthly in advance, by BACs. The first payments will be received in October 2025. Mileage allowances will be monitored against monthly college attendance and can be suspended if necessary. All mileage allowances are capped at a maximum of £120 per month.
- Yes, you can apply for up to £5000 per year, per child, once your free hours have been used, for a maximum of 3 children. This is for timetabled sessions only and does not include work placements or additional study sessions.
- To be eligible for support with childcare, cohabiting couples must have a combined income of less than £38,000 and single parents less than £28,000.
- Please read through our Childcare Bursary Booklet for more information and guidance.
- To help you with the cost of your studies we can support with the cost of any essential PPE or uniform, as necessary for you to complete your course. Consumables such as in class equipment cannot be funded through the bursary.
- We can support with the costs of registration fees, professional memberships and essential college trips.
- If you are studying a full-time level 2 or 3 qualification and your daily return travelling time would be greater than 2 hours per day you may be eligible for funding support with accommodation costs.
For funding purposes, the Government define a learner as unemployed if one or more of the following apply, they:
- receive Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA), including those receiving National Insurance credits only
- receive Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)
- receive Universal Credit (UC), and their take-home pay as recorded on their UC statement (disregarding UC payments and other benefits) is less than £952 a month (learner is sole adult in their benefit claim) or £1534 a month (learner has a joint benefit claim with their partner)
- are released on temporary license, studying outside a prison environment, and not funded by Ministry of Justice.
Download a PDF Guide for more information
For advice on funding, bursaries or anything else please get in touch:
Call us on 0330 123 2523Send us a message