Help With Student Loans - HERE!

steiff1

my wife is doing NVQ2 Further Education at college 18hrs a week. Is there anything help wise she is entitled too?

I work full time but am a part time student too.

welf_man

"Each month the Inland Revenue takes the required amount from your wages and then at the end of the tax year passes the total amount onto the Student Loans Company, sometimes several months after the tax year has finished. Whilst you are making these repayments, the amount is not being deducted from your loan monthly, annually instead. Therefore, you are still paying interest, each month, on an amount that should have been reduced by your Inland Revenue payments. You are the one that is losing out because you are paying more interest on your student loan, but the Inland Revenue is gaining interest on the amounts collected from myself. Anyone with a student loan will be affected by this matter. This matter needs to be looked into so that the amount collected each month is deducted from the student loan each month rather than annually." This has been posted on a Money Advisers' forum and I thought of you!Thanks,Mel.

sly_dog_jonah

welf_man, you've pointed out just one of gremlins in the student loan system but I don't think there's anything that SLC worker can do about it. I agree with your sentiments about how it should work, but I think the blame lies at the door of HMRC.

noni

Hi SLC worker - daughter studying for HNC Healthcare - will be placements 2 days per week. Got students loan form and bit confused. Household income in region of£50K. Wants to get loan - from my understanding looks as though she will only get non-means tested loan , minimum amount of £450 as HNC is treated as final year awards. Travelling expenses don't seem to come into it. At moment having to pay for all books, uniforms, expenses etc. Know we have to apply for tuition fees but is there any point in going through the full financial thing if we are over the threshhold? Not sure how husbands mileage reinbursement for leased car should be treated in financial info. Would appreciate some info. thanks

mhoc

Re my daughters student loan. She applied online and sent off her passport as proof of id. This came back next day so we assumed everything must be Ok. So she logged onto the system to see how things were going. The odd thing is that the system asked a differnt security question than the one she had answered.

So she rang the number to query this and was asked for a number from her LEA letter which she has not had yet. She was then told her application would take up to 10 weeks. Also she was told about some deadline that passed months ago.

Is this normal?

What happens when the term starts next week, plenty of internet access but no land line for spending hours getting in touch with her LEA.

She is a first year student, got in through clearing which is why she applied for her loan late and why we are so clueless!

Mary

AddieH

noni wrote:

Hi SLC worker - daughter studying for HNC Healthcare - will be placements 2 days per week. Got students loan form and bit confused. Household income in region of£50K. Wants to get loan - from my understanding looks as though she will only get non-means tested loan , minimum amount of £450 as HNC is treated as final year awards. Travelling expenses don't seem to come into it. At moment having to pay for all books, uniforms, expenses etc. Know we have to apply for tuition fees but is there any point in going through the full financial thing if we are over the threshhold? Not sure how husbands mileage reinbursement for leased car should be treated in financial info. Would appreciate some info. thanks

noni, it depends on how much in the region of £50k you are talking about if it's just below I'd say apply as you might get more than the non-means tested amount of loan, if it's just above as you say you are only likely to receive the non-means tested support. As you've said it may be worth you apply for a tuition fee loan to cover the cost of the tuition fees. The mileage reimbursement might be treated as a "benefit in kind", but it might depend on whether the reimbursement includes covering for "personal" use of the car rather than working use.

Hope helpful.

AddieH

mhoc wrote:

Re my daughters student loan. She applied online and sent off her passport as proof of id. This came back next day so we assumed everything must be Ok. So she logged onto the system to see how things were going. The odd thing is that the system asked a differnt security question than the one she had answered.

So she rang the number to query this and was asked for a number from her LEA letter which she has not had yet. She was then told her application would take up to 10 weeks. Also she was told about some deadline that passed months ago.

Is this normal?

What happens when the term starts next week, plenty of internet access but no land line for spending hours getting in touch with her LEA.

She is a first year student, got in through clearing which is why she applied for her loan late and why we are so clueless!

Mary, some local authorities can take longer than others to process applications, so they recommend you complete them by a certain deadline to ensure students do receive their funding before the start of the course. However a number of people will be in your situation as well and your local authority should be aware of the timing issues.

If she doesn't receive her finance in her first week of study suggest she contacts the student support office at the Uni and explains the situation she is in and they should be well prepared to deal with such a situation.

Hope helful.

welf_man

sly_dog_jonah wrote:

welf_man, you've pointed out just one of gremlins in the student loan system but I don't think there's anything that SLC worker can do about it. I agree with your sentiments about how it should work, but I think the blame lies at the door of HMRC.

As I said in the post, the statement was posted on another forum - the quotation marks were also on the other forum, so I assume this is a query raised by a third party, probably a student.

I know someone who was involved in developing the SLC computer system, and they don't think the situation outlined in the quote is actually what happens, but as they worked on a different part of the system, rather than payments, I thought SLCworker might be better placed to answer authoratatively.

I quite agree about HMRC though!

Mel.

zebracar

Hi,

I graduated in 1998 - since then I have deferred my student loan each year as I have not earned over the threshold amount. I am now 45, my understanding at the time of taking the loans was that they would become null and void by the time I was 50 if I didn't ever earn over the threshold. Can you verify this?

Thanks

davsidipp

hi my son needs to know how much loan will he get if he does part time at uni.also does or have anyone filled in an alf form.
urgent please as he has to make a decision bfore end of next week.