You are funding this. You should be able to see it.
Most families pay for a degree on trust and find out what it cost afterwards. This page is the opposite: the stage of the application you are funding, every charge before it falls due, and the rules you can hold us to about your money.
Check the application you are funding
The reference plus the applicant's email address is the sponsor's access. It shows stage and dates only. Nothing financial and no document is released through this lookup.
What a sponsor sees
Five things you are entitled to, without asking twice
A sponsor is not a bystander to an education. These are the entitlements Forward publishes rather than grants case by case.
The application stage, in plain words
With the reference and the applicant's email address, a sponsor sees the same six-stage tracker the applicant sees: received, document verification, academic review, decision, enrolment, enrolled. No interpretation, no sales language.
Every charge before it falls due
The fee structure is published per billing unit rather than as a single annual number, so a sponsor can see exactly what is being charged, what is included and what is not, before committing.
Progress on capabilities, once enrolled
A student can name a sponsor to receive a termly progress summary: modules attempted, modules mastered, the capability record and the cooperative-education placement status. The student authorises it; Forward does not release it otherwise.
The paid cooperative-education year in writing
Twelve months of the degree are a paid, assessed placement. The employer pays the student. A sponsor can see the placement status and the assessment outcome, because it changes what the family is funding.
The Refusal List applies to sponsors too
No agent commissions charged back to families, no pressure deadlines, no fee increase inside a cohort's published schedule, and no charge for a document a sponsor has already paid for once.
The money timeline
When each charge falls due, and who pays it
Read this as a sequence, not a bill. It tells you the order of events and the billing unit for each stage.
Amounts are shown as Confirmed before the founding intake until the governing body signs off the founding-intake schedule. The structure below is final; only the figures are outstanding.
Step 1 · At application
Paid by: Applicant
Application fee
One charge per application cycle, not per programme choice. The figure is confirmed with the intake schedule and is waived for the access categories published under funding.
Step 2 · With the offer
Paid by: Forward
Nothing is payable to hold a place while you decide
Forward does not charge to keep an offer open for the published response window, and does not shorten that window to force a decision.
Step 3 · On acceptance
Paid by: Sponsor
Enrolment deposit, credited to tuition
The deposit is not an extra fee: it is the first part of term-one tuition. Refund conditions are published in the same schedule as the amount.
Step 4 · Before each term or block
Paid by: Sponsor
Tuition for that unit only
Degrees are billed per six-month term (Path One) or per block (Path Two), so a student who accelerates pays for fewer units rather than for a fixed number of years.
Step 5 · Once each academic year
Paid by: Sponsor
Functional fees
Registration, examination, laboratory and studio consumables, library access and the identity card, itemised rather than bundled into a single opaque figure.
Step 6 · During the co-op year
Paid by: Forward
The employer pays the student
The cooperative-education placement is paid work. Tuition during that period covers supervision, moderation and assessment only, and is charged at the published co-op rate.
Protecting your money
Five rules you can check us against
Education fraud in this region takes money from families, not from institutions. These rules exist so a sponsor can recognise a demand that is not ours.
Forward is paid into a named institutional bank account only
Never into a personal account, never into a staff member's mobile money wallet, never in cash to an individual. If anyone asks you for either, that person is not collecting a Forward fee.
Every payment produces a receipt against the applicant's reference
If a payment does not appear against the reference within two working days, contact admissions and quote the reference rather than paying again.
No agent is authorised to add a fee on top of the published schedule
Forward pays no commission that is charged back to a family. A fee that is not on the published schedule is not a Forward fee.
Money and documents never move over chat
LEO, WhatsApp and the AI tools answer questions. They never take a payment, never ask for a bank detail and never collect an identity document.
You can escalate to a human, with a written answer
A sponsor may ask for any fee explanation in writing before paying, and Forward answers in writing.
Sponsor questions
What families ask before they pay
If your question is not here, ask it and we answer in writing, quoting the published schedule.
- Can a parent or sponsor see an applicant's status without the applicant?
- Yes, with the application reference and the email address used to apply. Those two together act as the sponsor's access. Nothing beyond stage, programme and dates is released through that lookup, and the enrolled-student progress summary requires the student to name the sponsor.
- How much will a Forward degree cost my family in total?
- The billing structure is published in full on the fees page, but the figures are confirmed by the governing body before the founding intake opens. Anything shown as pending is a real line on the schedule with its number still to be signed off. Forward publishes no estimate it might later have to correct.
- Is the twelve-month cooperative-education year an extra cost?
- No. It is paid work: the employer pays the student. During that period Forward charges only the published co-op rate, which covers supervision, employer assessment moderation and the co-op adviser.
- What happens to our money if the student withdraws?
- Refund conditions are published in the same schedule as the amounts, per billing unit. Because tuition is charged per term or per block rather than per year, a withdrawal does not leave a family paying for study the student never began.
- Can a sponsor pay by instalments?
- Payment plans are published alongside the scholarships and bursaries on the funding page. A plan is an arrangement over the published schedule, not a higher total for paying later.
- Will you contact my sponsor to chase payment?
- Only a sponsor the student has named in writing, and only about the account. Forward does not use a sponsor's contact details for marketing.
Next steps for a sponsor
Read the fee structure, check the funding you may qualify for, and note the intake dates so the money timeline lines up with your own.