Digital Gateway Grants
The University has recently announced that Digital Gateway Grants (DGG) will be made available to those of our incoming UK/EU undergraduates who have previously been eligible for free school meals (or are mature students in receipt of comparable benefits), or have spent time in local authority care.
If you have already declared in-care status (via UCAS), and/or have provided us with evidence of your free school meal eligibility (for example when claiming reimbursement of interview travel costs), there is no need for you to do anything else, and the grant of £1000 will be automatically awarded and paid to your bank account in September by Student Finance once your place is confirmed. We will process awards as soon as eligibility is confirmed.
If you believe yourself to be eligible for a DGG but have not already provided evidence as described, please let us know and send suitable evidence to senior.tutor@chu.cam.ac.uk following confirmation of your place.
There will also be a number of smaller grants available for those whose financial circumstances have worsened recently and who would otherwise struggle to access suitable IT equipment before the start of their course. If you believe you fall into this group, please let us know, after confirmation of your place and before the end of August, so we can make an application for a discretionary award on your behalf. Again, email senior.tutor@chu.cam.ac.uk.
Please note that Cambridge Digital Gateway grants, and these smaller grants, are being offered to qualifying students in addition to the Cambridge Bursary Scheme (CBS) and the Top-Up Bursaries (TUB), which continue to operate, noting that CBS and TUB are paid on the basis of information supplied by you about your household income to your student loan provider. Please also be aware that if your household income is now lower than it was in the 2018-19 tax year, you are able to ask Student Finance to conduct an ‘in-year’ assessment, which might mean that you qualify for an enhanced loan (and possibly also a Cambridge Bursary).
If you are made a Digital Gateway Grant you can contact your Director of Studies and/or Tutor about educational discounts and suppliers, and on what type of IT equipment will be most suitable for your course. You will be given the names and contact details of your Director of Studies and Tutor after confirmation later this month. This information will come from the Tutorial Office.
It is important that you wait until all places have been confirmed and you then need to direct all queries with respect to this process to senior.tutor@cam.ac.uk Colleagues in the Tutorial Office will not be in a position to help before they receive a list of new incoming students so again this explains why you will need to wait until all places are confirmed (if you are on a gap year please wait to as your name will not have been passed to colleagues in the Tutorial Office yet either).
