With a clampdown on PIP and related benefits, students such as Lauren Hall are struggling to finish their degrees

For three years, Lauren Hall, a final year undergraduate studying French and German at Jesus College, Oxford, has relied on disability benefits to help her through her degree. Hall, 23, is on the autistic spectrum and has coordination problems, anxiety, and fatigue from her medication. She struggles to work long hours, or cook and shop for herself. Her personal independence payment (PIPs), enabled her to buy pre-made food – but after she was reassessed last June, her benefits were stopped.

When she asked the Department for Work and Pensions to reconsider, Hall says the fact she was at university was used as evidence she didn’t need the benefit. “They stated that I ‘evidently’ had no issues with socialising or independent living, despite me outlining that going outside entails physical exhaustion,” she says.

Hall was already finding it hard to study with her disability – she’d previously suspended her degree study for two years before returning in October 2015 – but found being reassessed for her benefits so stressful she had to withdraw from her exams last summer. “[My benefit assessors] wouldn’t let me postpone my PIP assessment until after my finals,” she said. She therefore had no choice but to suspend her degree for nine months, and now hopes to return next month and take her final exams, before pursuing a master’s.

Hall, who is from Staffordshire, has no current student loan because she had suspended her studies. A student loan would, in any case, not cover the extra costs of her disability. So for the past nine months, Hall has had to work in a local bookshop for 20 hours a week, against her doctors’ advice. It’s so exhausting for her that she has to take two days off from her job each month to recover.

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“It really takes its toll,” she says. “After rent, I’m just about breaking even. I’m falling short on food.”

The government has been criticised for its restrictions to personal independence payments, which will block 165,000 people, primarily with mental health problems, from the benefit. But another obscure rule of the benefit is quietly going under the radar – one that is leaving disabled students such as Hall with little to live on. PIP is a “gateway benefit” – receiving it enables disabled people to access other benefits, such as carer’s allowance. But under the current benefit system, if you’re a student being turned down for PIP can make you ineligible for support such as universal credit or employment and support allowance. So not only has Hall been rejected for PIP, she is also unable to access any other benefits.

This rule affects only disabled people in higher education – most full-time students without disabilities can’t claim benefits such as universal credit.

Rundip Thind, education officer at Disability Rights UK, says benefits-related concerns made up almost half the inquiries to the disabled students’ helpline last year.

“The restrictions imposed by the government over recent years, constantly tightening the PIP criteria, have denied many disabled students access to vital support,” says James Elliott, disabled students officer at the National Union of Students. “This could mean many eventually dropping out of their education, as PIP gave them the support they needed to remain independent.” In addition, he believes, recent attempts to block access to PIP for those with conditions such as severe anxiety, will mean tens of thousands more people will miss out, including many students.

Lily Boulle, 25, a first-year human biology student at the University of East London, who has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that affects joints, skin, internal organs and bones, says she was left “floundering” after being rejected for PIP last September.

When Boulle went to Citizens Advice for help she found she was “locked out” of the benefit system. “There’s absolutely nothing you can get as a student unless you have PIP,” she says. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Boulle has access to other support – a standard student loan and a disabled student allowance – but neither is designed to make up the shortfall of disability benefits. She has already used her DSA to fund a laptop and a specialist desk that she can sit at without damaging her hips, while the student loan covers only standard costs. “Plus student loans are there to only cover you through the school year. Everyone gets summer jobs. I haven’t got the energy,” Boulle says.

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Without PIP, and with her condition deteriorating, Boulle has had no way to pay for ready-made food she needs (“That’s the difference between fainting on a train and not”) or the £50 a week rent for the power wheelchair she needs. Her worsening health combined with her benefit problems has meant she has had to suspend her degree.

“I’m waiting to have an NHS wheelchair assessment but in the meantime, I don’t have the money to hire one. It’s left me housebound and unable to attend university,” she says.

Last month – five months after placing an appeal – Boulle had her PIP rejection overturned at tribunal. But the gruelling process has taken its toll: her condition is exacerbated by stress and she’s been collapsing from additional pain, whilst she’s also had to begin treatment for panic attacks. Several weeks after winning her appeal, Boulle still hasn’t received her backdated benefits.

No one knows how many students are affected by the loss of these vital disability benefits. David Malcolm, of the Equality Challenge Unit, which supports universities and colleges with inclusion, says: “It will be critical to properly evaluate this and do so while considering the cumulative impact of other funding reforms, such as changes to disabled students’ allowance, student finance and social care.”

The Department for Work and Pensions said: “Full-time students can’t usually get ESA or universal credit, as they are replacements for income from work. Disabled students who claim DLA or PIP may be eligible if they need to take time out from studying due to their condition. We spend around £50bn a year to support people with health conditions and disabilities, and hardship payments and benefit advances are available for those who need extra short-term support.”