Esa Disabled Student

Hi. I am a full time student of 2 years, I have been in receipt of esa the whole time I have been a student. Recently I was turned down for pip so my dla claim was shut down, today esa have told me my claim has been shut down as I am not on dla or pip and apparently I have to be on one of these to claim esa whilst being a student. Can anyone tell me if this is correct? And also if a claim is shut down do you have to make a new one or can they reopen it?

Many Thanks

Hi Richard and Welcome to the forum, you might want to have a look at the following FAQ which explain where everything is

Welcome to Benefits and Work

Yes, I'm afraid it is correct that, as a full-time student, you can only be in reciept of ESa if you are also on DLA/PIP.

If you were to appeal the PIP result and it was re-instated, I think your ESA wouild also be re-instated. If you were to make a new claim for PIP, you would also have to re-claim ESA once the PIP is awarded.

If you wish to take your current PIP claim further, you first step would be to request a Mandatory Reconsideration. This is explained in more detail in our PIP guide

PIP help for claimants

You might want to bookmark/favourite this on your web browser now so that you can find it easily in future. This will allow you to return with further questions about your PIP without having to start a new topic each time. It helps us enormously when everything relating to the same claim is kept in one place - and I hope you will find it useful too

I'm glad I've found this topic ...
I have been out of uni for two years now I should have graduated this year
I was hoping to go back this September but it would be too much of a struggle for me still unfortunately but I would have thought going to uni full time would go against being able to get pip as your able to get out and about?
I also didn't know you could still get ESA if you are on pip whilst being a student I just assumed they would take everything away once back at universit? As my worry was if I did eventually go back and started to struggle within the first few days/weeks and had to quit I'd be struggling financially as the student loan would have to be paid back so it is handy to know

I'm glad you have found this helpful Nicola.

I don't see that attending Uni would be counter to a PIP claim (depending on the stated problems), don't forget that people claim PIP and also work full time.

With an income-related claim, DWP will take any student loan as income.