Who actually provides the student loan?

.blue

Hey all,
Slightly confused by all the types of student loans out there. I'm due to be starting uni in Sept/Oct '09 and have completed the online request through Student Finance Wales (although uni is in England).

As far as I understand, they provide both the tuition fee loan (up to £3225 paid directly to the university) and the maintenance loan (up to £3559 which is paid to me in 3 instalments at the start of each term).

I understand that as there is effectively no real interest on either of these, it is worthwile taking out the maximum possible. What I don't understand though is where do the commercial banks come into the equation? Both above loans are supplied by the Student Loans Company.
Is a commerical student loan to be taken out on top of the above?

On a side note, what would happen if there was deflation? Would I be getting 'free money'!? :j

melancholly

the SLC is a public sector company that provides loans. have a look at these two links to get all the info you need:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/student-loans-repay
http://www.slc.co.uk/about%20student%20finance/index.html

i don't think there is such as thing as a 'commercial' student loan - the best you will get is a student account with an interest free overdraft.....

the_annoyed_customer

.blue wrote: »

On a side note, what would happen if there was deflation? Would I be getting 'free money'!? :j

Not at the moment as the government has just tinkered with the law to make this impossible. But remember there will be an election next year and if Labour are voted out it may change. Or it might change anyway in the mean time depending on the situation of the economy and the view of the government

Stubert

You shouldn't need a commercial loan as well.

Obviously everything depends on how much support you get from your parents (assuming you're not independent yet), how much your accommodation is, how big your over draft is and how much money you've earned before going to uni.

I couldn't have survived uni without having summer jobs to tide me over.

atypical

the_annoyed_customer wrote: »

Not at the moment as the government has just tinkered with the law to make this impossible.

Are you referring to the legislation changes posted about here? In which case it hasn't been made impossible.

You shouldn't need a commercial loan though they do exist. Have you read the article here? You should take the maximum possible, even if you don't spend it putting it in a savings account which earns more than the interest on the loan means you make a small 'profit'.

melancholly

atypical wrote: »

You shouldn't need a commercial loan though they do exist.

what commerical student loans are there? apart from a career development loan for postgrad study (which isn't usually the best way anyway), i don't know of any loans aimed at students! do you mean standard loans or are there some special ones for students out there?

atypical

That's a good point. Martin does say to avoid bank loans so I assume they must give them to students? Perhaps he means unarranged overdrafts. Other than that, stores cards/credit cards and those horrible short term loans at ridiculous rates of interest?

.blue

Thanks for the responses everyone... I think I'm mixing up the actual student loan and a student account (from commercial banks). But from what I understand now, you don't have to have a student account to be able to get a student loan - you can give the details of a normal account.

Will read the links above as they seem to be useful - thanks for that!

pippy_2

My son has been in uni since September 2008. Yesterday he got a letter from RBS who he has his student account with asking him to contact them as they are concerned that there was no credits being made to his account and he is getting near the limit of his overdraft (he hasn't been able to get a part-time job).
He phoned them and they have given him 10 days to repay half of the almost £1,200 overdraft!

MrsManda

pippy wrote: »

My son has been in uni since September 2008. Yesterday he got a letter from RBS who he has his student account with asking him to contact them as they are concerned that there was no credits being made to his account and he is getting near the limit of his overdraft (he hasn't been able to get a part-time job).
He phoned them and they have given him 10 days to repay half of the almost £1,200 overdraft!

Has he been paying his student loan into his student account? This is usually enough to keep an account open. I'd suggest he went into his branch and discussed a repayment plan with a member of staff.

melancholly

pippy wrote: »

My son has been in uni since September 2008. Yesterday he got a letter from RBS who he has his student account with asking him to contact them as they are concerned that there was no credits being made to his account and he is getting near the limit of his overdraft (he hasn't been able to get a part-time job).
He phoned them and they have given him 10 days to repay half of the almost £1,200 overdraft!

a lot of banks seem to be tightening up on students who open lots of student accounts for all the freebies, even though the t&cs state you can only have their student account.... if he has only one student account, where his loan is paid into, as MrsManda says, there should be no problem. if he has got multiple student accounts, it may be a bit more tricky....when did he last pay any money into that account?

it's always better with student account issues to go to a branch at the university rather than calling up or going to a different branch. the staff there have much more experience of student accounts.