All students, regardless of their nationality, must meet both the residency requirements and all the course related requirements. The residency related requirements refer to a student's UK residence and immigration status.
The main residency requirements are that on the first day of the first academic year of the course you must:
- Be ordinarily resident in England; and
- Have settled status in the UK; and
- Have been ordinarily resident in the UK, Channel Islands or Isle of Man throughout the 3 year period prior to that date (apart from temporary or occasional absences).
Ordinary residence for eligibility purposes is defined as a person who is habitually, normally and lawfully resident in a country by choice for a settled purpose.
Settled status means being ordinarily resident in the UK without being subject to any restriction on the period for which a person may remain in the UK.
For eligibility purposes it's not necessary to have settled status for the whole of the 3 years before the start of your course. This could have been granted at any time before the first day of your course.
A full guide to our residency requirements, including all exceptions to the above, can be found on our website.