How A-Level Resits Are Funded, and Why They Often Are Not

Usually not. The DfE funding rules state that funding is not available for students repeating a year solely to improve a grade for higher education applications, and cannot be claimed for students retaking a passed qualification solely to improve their grade.

A student who did not complete or did not pass a qualification is in a different position from a student who passed and wants a higher grade.

You can ask, and some will take you. Whether they can is largely determined by whether they can claim funding for you, and for a grade-improvement resit they generally cannot.

Ask the question in funding terms rather than in admissions terms, and ask whether a fee-paying place exists if a funded one does not.

Because enrolling an unfundable student means a year of teaching cost with no income against it. For most institutions that is not a decision about the individual.

It is also why the private resit market exists at all. The rule creates the gap; providers like us operate in it.

The funding rules for 16 to 19 provision state that funding "is not available for students repeating a year solely to improve a grade for higher education applications", and that funding "cannot be claimed for students retaking a passed qualification solely to improve their grade".

The rules are republished for each academic year, so check the version for the year you are asking about.

No. A student aged 16, 17 or 18 on 31 August is a 16 to 18 year old student for that year, and retains that status if they turn 19 during the programme.

Eligibility is judged at the start of the programme, not continuously through it.

Not at young people's rates. The rules state that students aged 19 and over on 31 August, other than those aged 19 to 24 with an EHC plan, "would not normally be funded at young people's rates".

Adult education funding operates through separate routes with separate rules, and A-Level resits are not usually a priority within them.

Yes, on age. Students aged 19 to 24 on 31 August with an Education, Health and Care plan are eligible for young people's funding.

It does not by itself override the separate rule about repeating a year solely to improve a grade. Age eligibility and course eligibility are two different tests.

The rules allow for exceptional circumstances, described as medical grounds, personal or family hardship, and a change of career goal.

The assessment is made by the institution, against the rules, on evidence. Put your case in writing with documentation rather than making it verbally in results week.

No. Tuition fee and maintenance loans are for higher education courses. An A-Level sits outside that system.

Anyone offering you a "student loan" for an A-Level course is offering consumer credit under another name. Read what you are signing.

A fund distributed by education institutions in receipt of 16 to 19 funding, to help eligible students with the costs of taking part, travel, equipment, meals and similar.

It is not a tuition fund and it does not make an unfundable course fundable. Whether a particular institution administers it is a question to put to that institution.

No. Exam entry is a separate charge made by the centre, and it applies to funded and self-funding candidates alike.

Our entry fees differ by subject: one rate for a written-paper subject, a higher rate for Mathematics or Further Mathematics, a science rate that includes the practical endorsement, and a rate for the endorsement alone. The exam fees page lists all four.

Pay the published fee, spread across ten months at no extra cost, or across three termly payments, or in full at the lower price. One part-time subject is £299 a month or £2,690 in full.

If cash flow is the problem rather than the total, ask for the hardship rate: the pay-in-full price paid monthly, £269 for one subject, £328 for one science, £970 for the one-year three-subject route, £1,300 for the one-year Medicine route. We do not ask for documentation.