What happens to my EHCP when I go to university?

What happens to the plan

Your EHCP ends at university: higher education sits outside the EHCP framework. Support comes instead from Disabled Students' Allowance (up to £27,783 in 2025/26) and reasonable adjustments universities must make. The legal reason is narrow but firm. The part of the law that creates EHCPs (Part 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014) says that "education" there does not include higher education (section 83). So once you start a degree, the council's duty to maintain your plan stops, and the plan no longer has any legal force over your course.

This is not the same as your support stopping. It is a change of system: the structured help that was arranged for you through your EHCP is replaced by two routes you have to set up yourself.

What replaces it

Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA) is a non-repayable grant from Student Finance England, worth up to £27,783 a year in 2025/26 (the same maximum applies for 2026/27). It is not means-tested, so your household income makes no difference, and you never pay it back. It funds the practical things your old plan might have covered, such as assistive software, a specialist study-skills tutor or a mentor.

Reasonable adjustments are changes the university must make so a disabled student is not put at a substantial disadvantage, under the Equality Act 2010 (section 20). That can mean extra time in exams, lecture slides in advance, deadline flexibility or a quiet exam room. The university cannot charge you for these adjustments. They apply if you meet the Act's definition of disability, whether or not you hold a formal diagnosis.

School plan versus university support

The two systems work very differently, which is the part that catches most students out.

• Who sets it up: a council arranged your EHCP for you; at university you apply for DSA and register with the disability service yourself.
• Legal basis: your EHCP sat under the Children and Families Act 2014; university support sits under DSA rules and the Equality Act 2010.
• What it is: an EHCP is a single binding plan; at university the funding (DSA) and the adjustments (Equality Act) are two separate things you arrange in parallel.
• What triggers it: an EHCP was reviewed for you each year; nothing happens at university unless you make it happen.

The bit people miss: college is different

Further education is not the same as higher education. An EHCP can follow you into a sixth-form college, an FE college or an apprenticeship, and a council can keep maintaining it up to the end of the academic year in which you turn 25, as long as you still need it. University is the cut-off, not turning 18 and not leaving school. So if your next step is a college course rather than a degree, your plan may well continue.

Because the support no longer arrives automatically, start early. DSA can take many weeks to set up, and you want help in place for your first week, not your fifth. Share your old EHCP with the university disability service as evidence: it carries no legal force now, but it is a detailed record of what helps you, and it can shape your DSA needs assessment and the learning support plan the disability service draws up with you.

This page is general information, not clinical or legal advice.