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You're right David, I missed out the word NOT, as in *not* eligible for disability benefits and LEA-based payments in the UK. However, some universities have a budget for disability services that is their own budget, not tied to the individual student. At mine, an overseas student would be able to get a full disability assesssment, for example, and we would definitely fund any access adjustments (like the ones the American student who went to Uni in Ireland described). That's under the DDA, which applies to citizens and non-citizens alike, so we have to do it. This would apply to mental ill health and learning disabilities as well as physical impairments. What might become very difficult is things like... paying your rent, buying food, paying for transport, buying equipment for use at home or off-campus. Non-citizens are not eligible for any disability benefits in the UK, it's stamped on your passport when you enter the country (I know, I am not a UK citizen and it's stamped on mine). If you do claim benefits, it's apparently a deportable offense, or so the Home Office tells me. Us non-citizens are, however, eligible for NHS health care... and that's about it. My husband, a disabled mature student, has gotten kinda lucky by exploiting a loophole in the above rules. We entered the UK so I could go to Uni, he just came as my spouse. I now work here and we've been here almost 5 years. After 3 years, if (and only if) he or she didn't enter the country on a student visa, a non-citizen can become eligible to attend university at home rates and therefore become eligible for LEA funding. The law is very, very fuzzy and we feel pretty lucky; others in the same situation have been turned down and he almost lost his funding last year because of some over-zealous person checking the paperwork. But so far, knock on wood, his tuition and equipment needs have been covered. The reason for this loophole, I assume, is that while people like us aren't citizens, we are taxpayers. He still can't claim disability allowance, incapacity benefit, unemployment, or anything like that, nor can we receive child tax credits, which would sure be helpful in paying for the extra needs of our autistic son. Buy hey, in all honesty I am just glad to live somewhere where we have health care, after many years of going without or paying scary amounts of money back in the USA! Giving you more information than you wanted to know, as always, Mitzi ----- Original Message ----- From: David Quarter <[log in to unmask]> Date: Tuesday, February 7, 2006 4:43 pm Subject: Re: PhD Research Request > Mitzi, > > can you clarify: are you saying that disabled students from outside > the UK are not > entitled to funding? > > If not (if we can receive funding), is it available to those of us > with mental > impairments (e.g. OCD, Scizophrenia, etc)? > > David ________________End of message______________________ This Disability-Research Discussion list is managed by the Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds (www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies). Enquiries about the list administratione should be sent to [log in to unmask] Archives and tools are located at: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/disability-research.html You can JOIN or LEAVE the list from this web page.