Student support number(SSN)

All Students who are in receipt of statutory student finance

The Student Support Number (SSN) is assigned by Student Support Award Authorities (Northern Ireland Library Boards, Welsh Local Authorities, Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) and Student Loans Company (SLC)).

It is the student identifier that is used in student finance communications between the Student Support Award Authorities, providers and SLC.

The SSN is unique to each funded student.

The SSN is 13 characters long. The first four characters are alpha. The next 8 characters are numeric. The last character, which is a check character, is alpha. Students in receipt of SLC funding will have both a Student Support Number and a Customer Reference Number allocated by the SLC.

When a Scottish domiciled student who studies in Scotland and is assigned a number by SAAS, then moves to England and studies in England, their SAAS number is converted to an SSN and therefore this may appear as though the student has two numbers.

An SSN must be returned where the student is in receipt of any funds from the SLC for their Engagement e.g. maintenance loans, postgraduate loans etc

The SSN may therefore be required to be returned in a reference period where the student is not in receipt of support from the SLC.

For example, if the student received a loan for Engagement A for the first year, but not for the second year of the same Engagement, the SSN would still need to be returned during the reference periods where the student is not in receipt of support.

Where a SSN number is assigned to a student, this should be returned throughout their Engagement, regardless of whether the student received any support during the session. We would only expect this value to change under exceptional circumstances, such as when a new SSN has been assigned to a student if they have changed domicile, in which case you would return the latest number.

If Engagement A closes and Engagement B is opened but is not financed, the SSN would be removed.