Education Maintenance Allowances (EMAs)
Educational Maintenance Allowances (EMAs) provide financial support to young people from low income families to stay on in post-16 education, either in school or on a college course.
We made changes to the programme in January 2016 to support more young people to stay on in learning, including:
- increasing the eligible income threshold to £24,421 for households with one dependent child
- increasing the eligible income threshold to £26,884 for households with more than one dependent child
- making support available to part-time college students for the first time
EMA is an entitlement and demand led programme which is delivered by local authorities and colleges on behalf of the Scottish Government.
A weekly payment of £30 is made to a young person and is subject to attendance and agreement of a learning plan.
Related information
- apply or renew an Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) on the mygov.scot site