Discounts and Help with Fees

Information about discounts and concessions.

Available Discounts

We offer the following discounts:

Please note, you can only claim one discount at a time, and COL cannot apply discounts to your enrolment retrospectively. If you are eligible for a discount, please make sure you apply it during the enrolment process to avoid disappointment.

COL may ask you to provide proof of your discount eligibility, and we reserve the right to request this at any time.

The Martha Hamilton Trust

In addition to the above, we also offer 33% discount off the total course fee through the Martha Hamilton Trust. The Trust was set up by a former Centre for Open Learning student who wanted to ensure financial help was available for students on a low income.

This discount is awarded on the basis of individual need and applicants must meet eligibility criteria. Awards are discretionary and applications are considered individually. To be considered for this discount, we will require proof of your eligibility, such as a benefits letter or bank statement showing your income amount. We can accept scanned copies of these documents by email.

Full details regarding eligibility for the Martha Hamilton Trust can be found here:

Martha Hamilton Trust Eligibility (262.83 KB PDF)

Part-Time Fee Grant (for Certificate of Higher Education students)

The Part-Time Fee Grant is only available for students on the Certificate of Higher Education Programme, and could give you a grant towards your course tuition fees. The level of grant available is linked to the number of credits you study, so you need to choose all your courses for the full academic year in advance.

To qualify for support, you will need to meet the SAAS eligibility criteria on income, courses and qualifications, other funding, course providers and residence. These include:

• You must be studying for the 120-credit Certificate of Higher Education.
• You must be doing between 30 and 119 credits in each year of your course.
• You must have an individual income of £25,000 a year or less.
• SAAS cannot give you any part-time fee grant funding if you are already receiving support from another government training scheme. This includes the Individual Learning Account, the Employability Fund and the Modern Apprenticeship Scheme.
• If you are already getting full-time support from SAAS, then you will not be eligible to apply for the Part-time Fee Grant.

For more information, to find out whether you are eligible, and to download a SAAS Part-Time Fee Grant application form, visit the SAAS website: