Are you estranged from your family and considering university?

What is estrangement?

Being estranged means that there is a complete and irreconcilable breakdown in the relationship with your parents (biological or adoptive) and you have no communication with either of them. If one of your parents is deceased and you have no contact at all with your other parent, that also counts as estranged. This could be because you have decided you are better off leaving a difficult family home environment or because your parents have disowned you. You may consequently also have no contact with other members of the family, including siblings, but this isn’t so relevant for university study, in particular student finance.

The key issue is that estranged students do not have any financial, emotional or other support from their parents (biological or adoptive parents) for their higher education studies. They are self-reliant and live independently, sometimes with friends or a relative such as grandparents before or while at university.

Support available

Estrangement is so much more widespread than you may think. If you are already independent due to estrangement from your parents, or think that is likely to happen before or while you are at university, there is support for you. The charity Stand Alone has a range of resources to help you in their student support portal.

Stand Alone

Each university has their own support package for estranged students, so check each university website.

The UCAS website has lots of useful information to help you. And if you are estranged from your parents when you complete your UCAS application form, even for a very short amount of time, then do tick the ‘estranged’ box. This will help the university you go on to study at know you are coming and student support staff can get in touch with you to sort out the right support for you. Your information will remain confidential and will only be shared with others at your university if you give your consent.

This resource is part of the University Ready hub.

Find more resources like this on the hub homepage.