Student Grant Question.

Robster88

blueopal5577 wrote: »

I may be wrong but I thought it was based on the former years earnings, which would have been higher. You can only get the grant on £60,000 or under. I would budget like its not there, but talk to the CAB or the student finance dept at your university who will understand more. If your parents were on £100,000 before, could they not help you out out of their savings?

Yea I am budgeting as if I don't get it but Shivster seems to be in the know so hopefully I am eligible for something. My parents probaby could help me out if I needed it but have enough savings to keep me going for the time being. It would be silly not to get free money though if it is available for me so it's definately worth applying but if I don't get it it's not the end of the world (hopefully).

Robster88

Boosting quite an old thread here but I have finally received some information from the my local authority regards getting a grant due to my Dad earning significantly less money this year than last year. They have sent a form for my Dad to fill in asking about his income for the tax year April 07/08 but nowhere does it ask about his income for this year. I think they said that they will send him that one after he his given him his income for the last year.

I was wondering why this is? Will the fact that my Dad earned over £100,000 last year mean that they won't consider giving me a grant for this year even though he hasn't earned any money in the last six months? I understand that they need to know his income last year to see if there has been a big enough drop to be reassessed but wouldn't it make sense to send both the forms at the same time.

Perhaps somebody here can enlighten me.

dirtysexymonkey

Well they need to know his income from last year so that they can assess whether it has dropped by more than 15%. How else would they know?

Robster88

dirtysexymonkey wrote: »

Well they need to know his income from last year so that they can assess whether it has dropped by more than 15%. How else would they know?

Yea I know but wouldn't it make sense to send both forms at the same time - saving time and money? The only reason I can think of wanting this form first is that they will only send out another form if the info on the first form fits certain requirements. I was wondering if anyone knew if that was the case or not.

Dee140157

In my case I knew my income had changed when I filled in the original PFF1 (I think that is the form) for last years income. I rang my local authority and asked for the change of finance form to be sent to me as well. (They didn't do it automatically). I then filled in both and sent them off. Unfortunately they ignored the change of finance form at first as they misunderstood my reason for it (I got maried as well and that complicated things). However after we had received the grant offer based on last year's earnings I rang to query why it had been disrregarded and they realised they had been wrong and reassessed and ds got full grant. (At first they tried to say they hadn't had it but the fact they had the other form and it had been posted it in the same envelope helped enormously there. They suddenly managed to find it!)

So My advice is :
Ring up and ask for change of finance form to fill in alongside the form for last year's income.
Send them both back in the same envelope. (Photocopy first if you can for your own records)
Send a covering letter explaining why the change of finance form (even though you have to explain on the form).
Then ring a week or two later to make sure they have all the information they need.