Help With Student Loans - HERE!

HockeyDuo8083

Sorry the last time I took out a student loan, someone else filled out all the paperwork!
I won't have an income while i ma doing my course as i will be relying on my savings. I take it saving can be classed as income? Sorry for all the questions.

BruceyBonus

HockeyDuo8083 wrote: »

Sorry the last time I took out a student loan, someone else filled out all the paperwork!
I won't have an income while i ma doing my course as i will be relying on my savings. I take it saving can be classed as income? Sorry for all the questions.

The interest on your savings counts as income.

Oldernotwiser

HockeyDuo8083 wrote: »

I will be an independant student. Is there much difference in the loan amount if you do not have an partner i.e. you are soley on your own in your own home?

If you lived with someone who earned a lot of money you would get less funding than you will as a single person, just as non independent students get less funding the more their parents earn.

sawsa

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I'm not an SLC worker but I'll try to answer you.

You really need to concentrate on paying off your credit cards and overdraft and not worry about your student loans. You must be on a fair salary if you're paying back £100 per month and you need to relax and accept that you'll be paying back 9% of everything over £15,000 for the foreseeable future.

There really isn't anything you can do about this and there's certainly no point in making extra payments if you have other, less manageable debt to pay off. With low interest rates and an increasing salary you will now have started to make inroads into the loan . If you should lose your job or choose to work part time in the future then your payments will stop or decrease in relation to your salary, which certainly isn't the case with credit card debt!

I am in a similar situation to this. I have around £17k+ from my Architecture degree and whilst I am paying it off as expected, it seems to make very little difference and feel like I will be paying this for the rest of my life. I have no other debts other than this and wondered if it is worth making larger repayments to try to clear it, or is it simply best to pay the minimum forever? I have other things I would like to save for such as a house deposit.

Also a little off topic. I have 2 friends that have emigrated to Australia and have been told they do not have to pay back their student loans. Is this genuine because I cannot find information on it? With the UK construction industry in it's current state, emigration for work may have to be an option for me.

thanks in advance

sbuggle

The consquences of partying and spending too much money on your cards...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpI1y7njNAU

melancholly

sawsa wrote: »

Also a little off topic. I have 2 friends that have emigrated to Australia and have been told they do not have to pay back their student loans. Is this genuine because I cannot find information on it? With the UK construction industry in it's current state, emigration for work may have to be an option for me.

ok, who told them that?! it's just not true... someone will come along soon with a link to the part of the slc site where it tells you it's your responsibility to arrange payment if you move abroad (my internet is slow so i can't easily search and find it!). if they ever come back and work they'll get caught (and that's before even starting on the dubious attitude of not being prepared to pay back money they were loaned!)

your income will hopefully rise up £17K so you will be paying back much much more in future years (especially as an architect!). i assume the loan enabled you to be able to complete your degree so you should consider it in that way, rather than as a huge problem! if you read Martin's article on the main site, you'll see he recommends only paying the minimum as if you need any other loan ever, you'll never get the same generous repayment terms. any money you don't do in overpayments can be saved at what will be in the long term (maybe not for the next few months) at a higher interest rate than what you are charged on the loan.

HockeyDuo8083

Great advice peeps, thanks.

I should have around £5-6K by August and that would be what I will live off along with my student loan and perhaps interest free o/d

MrsManda

melancholly wrote: »

ok, who told them that?! it's just not true... someone will come along soon with a link to the part of the slc site where it tells you it's your responsibility to arrange payment if you move abroad

CLICK
The only differences with repayment of student loans when living abroad is that it's your responsibility to inform the SLC and the repayment threshold changes dependent on the country you are living in.

kelly_333_333

I was wondering if anyone might have some advice here please? The situation is that I live in the west midlands, with my partner who is 23 and lived here for almost a year, my daughter who is 7 and I am 27. We have both recently lost our jobs and are now claiming housing benefit and job seekers allowance. I should add that my partner is not the biological father of my daughter.

Now we would like to both study a bsc hons degree in music tech and have found the uni that would be best is in Kent. We would also need to both do an access course first. What we would like to do is move to Kent ready for this September and start our access course there. Kent will also be closer to my daughters real father and other family which is why it would be convenient to move now.

The options we have is to do a mutual exchange or to rent privately, both of which face problems. I am in slight arrears with my current rent which means I cannot do a swap until that is paid off and at the moment we have no spare funds to pay these off and to rent privately we would need a deposit which again isn't financially visible at the moment.

We have both been looking for work unsuccessfully and see no other way of getting money in!

Aside from that if we do manage to get to Kent and on to the uni course I am unsure of what would be available to us in regards to grants and loans. My partner will be 25 on the 8th of the September when we would be starting it.

Thank you in advance for anyone that can help with any of these matters!

Taiko

You wouldn't be able to receive student loans for an access course, as it's classed as further education and not higher.

I'm not entirely sure of the other support available, but the best people to contact would be Student Services at Kent Uni, who should be able to help. Failing that, someone who knows a bit about FE Funding will probably come along shortly.