Living Costs When Returning to Education?

No worries.  I bet it's pretty stressful trying to work all this out.

Sorry, and thanks for taking the time to reply.  I don't mean to be ungrateful.

Sorry if you've not found my reply at all helpful or relevant.  Your initial email identified barriers to work being the reason for looking at education.  I genuinely offered suggestions for what I considered possible routes for someone with no references as you say.  I think it's fair that replies have responded to this part, even if you didn't intend it as the primary query, and that this comes from a place of caring to help you to find a way forward and taking time to send a message.  I would hope that any reply (barring any offensive ones, of course) would be seen as being well intended.

It may be that there are no easy answers for covering your living costs.  The only things I can think of are:

• speaking to the university/institution you'd like to study at to find out about any funds they may have (e.g. hardship funds)
• gaining a scholarship (which I guess would be very difficult to secure and impossible for a 2015 start)

I hope you find a solution to your situation.  Given that a soluntion to your situation hasn't materialised on this forum you may need to enquire somewhere that routinely deals with these kinds of questions (which are not unique to autistic adults).

All the best.

I've listed some helpful things - so helpful that the moderators have intercepted it. If they don't pass it (can't see what the problem is) I'll get the information to you another way.

I'm looking at volunteering, too.  But I'm asking here about returning to education.  I'm wondering if there's some kind of funding or whatever available that would cover living costs.

I'm asking here about education, not references.  If I was asking about how to get a job without references, I'd be asking in the "Work and volunteering" topic.  When I said, "I'm stuck without references (really no references)," I really meant no references at all.  I don't just mean former employers.  I mean no references whatsoever.

So, I thought I'd look at returning to education in some way or other, and get a job later.

If I start a course, I can start relatively soon, as it's that time of year.  But, as I say, I will need to deal with living costs.  That's specifically what I'm asking about here.

One reason that people do some volunteering is to get references for future work.  I know volunteering doesn't pay the bills, but neither do most educational courses.  In my area the volunteer centre has a regular weekly session for people who have difficulty accessing volunteering.  There may also be employment support services, who could help you to identify feasible options (and possibly including studying/training, not just paid or voluntary work).

Puzzled why references should be such a barrier, or do you mean you don't hold letters from past employers to show to others?

Yes references are asked for, but how do people get started? At some point the references need to be unrelated to employment - eg former teachers. Your teachers may not have known your diagnosis but you can atleast tell them. Even if you dropped out of university there may be enough contact to get a basic reference - you got in after all.

OK for autism the reference system can be a bind. Referees may be prevented from disclosing a contributory factor such as autism on grounds of confidentiality. So the referee is stuck on certain questions as not allowed nowadays to make a damaging comment, for fear of litigation.

Letters of reference are still used (though rarely are they held by the job applicant to show to employers), but more often the referee is sent a form with questions - timekeeping, trustworthiness, getting along with colleagues etc. Or the employer asks the referee to address those questions in a letter, and may also send a job description. The trouble with these questions is they often pick up on autism weaknesses, and it can be very difficult as a referee to answer them within the law.

I've mentioned this before on here, and raised it with NAS directly before. References really do get in the way of people on the spectrum getting jobs, because the referee cannot confidently say the applicant meets the criteria asked for. I know because as a lecturer also supporting disabled students I've had to write them, and I've gone through agonies trying to do them for graduates on the spectrum.

However references have become mere formality. Most educational and work referees include a caveat to protect against litigation that makes the references pointless - to the effect nothing said here has any reliability.

However the reason I suggested work-based learning employment is that you have more chance of being taken on if you are willing to train on the job, and that also means employers may be more flexible about previous references. Willingness to train is hard to find.

My circumstances (few grades with lots of repeats) made things difficult, and even after going to university and getting degrees, I still had to account for my pre-university jobs, which didn't last long. Eventually I sussed you just pass it off as having fun after school, cos loads do this, and employers are used to a dubious post-school record. Initially I felt I had to be honest (and I didn't have a diagnosis then to explain things), but really its no big deal. But I did have a struggle getting started after university because references mattered more then than they do now.

Autism means you are going to meet barriers getting jobs and barriers keeping them. But at least you've got the diagnosis to explain why it has been a struggle. I had no excuses and for a long time looked like a wastrel.

I think you've got to try to beat the barriers not give up because of the autism. That's not easy advice, but it does seem nevertheless the best advice.

Thanks, longman, but I have no references.  That's why I'm thinking about education instead.  Returning to education as an alternative to getting a job doesn't really work if it relies on getting a job.  That's why I'm hoping to find some kind of funding, perhaps something like student maintenance loans, that I could live on.

How about work-based learning - get a job that allows study related to the job, leading towards a qualification that has points value towards a degree, if you chose to go back into education.

There are (or were) organisations called Sector Skills Councils - the coalition re-organised them and have left it a bit in the air. But if you google "sector skills councils" you should find the current host organisation which gives a list of these. They are the professional training and standards bodies for different industry sectors eg Asset Skills (Estates and housing management, cleaning, etc) Construction Skills (building industry) and so on. Others cover media, sports, beauty care, environmental management, IT etc.

Individual Sector Skills Councils, one in the area that most likely suits you, will tell you what sorts of jobs provide work based learning where you are assessed at least partly around the work you do, but with some other assessment thrown in. Look for something that offers CATS points - useable towards exemptions for university.

You might even find a job area that appeals. A lot of Sector Skills Council jobs are suited to people who don't want to socialise - eg work alone or fairly independently.