Help With Student Loans - HERE!

Lokolo

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Well if they really are doing a foundation degree, which will start in a month, you would think they would be smart enough to have thought about this before....

Just wanted to make sure they are doing an actual foundation degree..... :rotfl:

Lokolo

robmcdougal90 wrote: »

hi, my girlfriend 20 has just been accepted into Greenwich uni to study drama and education for three years. We live in a rented flat in north london and i work full time. Can you tell me what she is entitled to in terms of loans? thanks in advance

- No council tax for her, you get 25% single persons discount
- She gets student loan and grant based on her parents income, she will get more loan than most as she is living in London.

http://www.studentfinance.direct.gov.uk/calculator/studentfinancecalculator/

Fill it in

Oldernotwiser

Lokolo wrote: »

Well if they really are doing a foundation degree, which will start in a month, you would think they would be smart enough to have thought about this before....

Just wanted to make sure they are doing an actual foundation degree..... :rotfl:

And you've been posting on here for how long?:rotfl:

Oldernotwiser

Freckles1984 wrote: »

Hi again,

i turned 25 in Jan 09

To be classified as an independent student in terms of age you have to have been 25 at the start of the course, not become 25 in the middle of it. From what you have said you seem to have been correctly assessed on your parents' income.

(If you turned 25 during your second year, I assume you started your course at the age of 23. Had you not been self supporting for 3 years at this time?)

Freckles1984

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

To be classified as an independent student in terms of age you have to have been 25 at the start of the course, not become 25 in the middle of it. From what you have said you seem to have been correctly assessed on your parents' income.

(If you turned 25 during your second year, I assume you started your course at the age of 23. Had you not been self supporting for 3 years at this time?)

Hi, Thanks for your help - i didn't realize i have to be 25 at the start of the whole course - i thought it just applied to the new year of applying for student help - this makes sense now!!
My course is a 4 year course - i was 22 when i began in first year - i was at another university for a year when i turned 20 - so had only been self supporting for 2 years by the time a applied for this new course - so couldn't apply as independent
Thanks again

sarah.dee

Hi,
after finishing my undergraduate degree in July 2008, I have been making repayments via PAYE since April 2009. However, I'm due to start a postgraduate, full time course in October and wondered if there are any steps I must take to tell SLC that I'm going to defer repayment? I couldn't find any information online...
Thanks

Lokolo

sarah.dee wrote: »

Hi,
after finishing my undergraduate degree in July 2008, I have been making repayments via PAYE since April 2009. However, I'm due to start a postgraduate, full time course in October and wondered if there are any steps I must take to tell SLC that I'm going to defer repayment? I couldn't find any information online...
Thanks

You will just stop paying when you earn less than £15k, no need to tell them.

Circe32

Hi! This is my first post, so be nice
I'm having a whole world of trouble with trying to get my Student Finance sorted out. I sent off all my details way back in April, and have been calling them since then. First, they told me to be patient and that they were processing it, but it emerges that they lost my financial evidence. (I know they received it as I sent it in the same envelope as my birth certificate, which I got back).
In less than 4 weeks, I'm meant to start at uni and so far, all I've got is a non-income assessed offer. I faxed them my evidence AGAIN over the weekend, but being the technologically-advanced company that they are, they take 3 days to receive a fax. Is there anything I could do to speed this up? I'm willing to actually GO to Darlington now... that's how desperate I am.

Thanks.

Impet_Limpet

I applied 10 weeks ago today (mid June) and have had no assessment made yet, not even an non income assessed one. Its till says "awaiting asssessment\" online and the ask a question option has disappeared.

Have they forgotten me? unlikely I know but when is it acceptable to start to chase it up?

momoyama

mmm, OK. Hope no-one minds this. I'd love an answer, though.

Back in 2007, I wrote a lengthy letter of complaint. Thus:

1.9.07


Dear Sir

I write in complaint of persistent errors and omissions on the part of the student loans company (SLC) over the past twelve months causing me huge amounts of personal distress and adverse financial events. This document is largely created retrospectively hence there not being sufficient dating.

Firstly, my personal circumstances. By profession I am a Nurse working internal rotation shifts. My pay varies a great deal month-to-month based on extra duties. My “basic” pay is always well below the threshold for deferment. Just occasionally over the past eighteen months my pay including special duties (weekends, nights, bank holidays) has been slightly over the threshold. Special duties are paid one month after having worked them. My greatest months for income are January and December since it is then that I get Christmas and New Year public holiday pay enhancement. So two months out of twelve, I may (though rarely do) go over the threshold. I graduated in 2002 and until last year was persistently under the threshold.

You will have the basis of the above information on record from my previous deferment applications.

In March of 2006, I applied for deferment. One of my pay slips (February, as I recall) showed that I was over the threshold, so I sent six months’ worth to show that this was an isolated incident. I received all my documents back and no letter explaining that my application was refused. Having not had such a letter before, I thought nothing of it.

Around September of 2006, I received a letter informing me that the first payment of my loans was to be taken from my account the following week. I had not budgeted for this and did not have sufficient funds to cover this. I rang the Student Loans Company immediately. The advice I was given was to instruct my bank to refuse this payment. I was concerned about this, that it would affect my credit rating or initiate proceedings against me from the Student Loans Company. The agent promised to send another deferment application but with the time taken for processing, I would not be able to prevent the payment to the SLC being made. I checked the SLC website which confirmed my concern; that refusing the payment could cause the involvement of a debt reclamation agency.

Incidentally, the postmark on the new deferment application was some ten days after this telephone conversation.

I arranged a meeting with my bank manager who advised that the advice given by your agent was unsound. Instead we organised an overdraft extension which would cost me in interest but save me from worse effects from refusal of payment. This would affect my credit rating, but to a lesser degree.

Some time later (a matter of weeks), my application for deferment was subsequently accepted and I was promised a refund. I had months earlier booked a weekend training course which I needed the refund to cover since my agreed overdraft extension period had lapsed. The agent entered into their computer that I had asked for the refund and promised me immediate processing.

Come the day before my departure on my training course, I still had not received my refund and I could not afford to go. Yet with commitment to others to go and an otherwise wasted deposit I still went, endeavouring to save money where we could during the weekend. This was an extremely fraught weekend that at one point saw those travelling with me counting silver coins to put enough money together to buy petrol to get home and myself and my girlfriend skipping meals to save money. What should have been an enjoyable weekend was marred and worse yet made highly stressful by errors of the students loans company, particularly their inability to process anything in a timely manner.

We returned from our training weekend on the Sunday evening (22.10.06) so Monday morning I again rang the SLC. The agent I spoke to the previous week that had entered my request for refund actually hadn’t! It would take several days before I would be granted my refund. I was deeply unhappy with this and asked to speak to someone senior. A heated conversation followed. The senior agent informed me that despite my problems there was nothing more they could do. This simply unacceptable. After several days of going into non-agreed debt, I finally received my refund. I obviously incurred charges from this.

My bank manager encouraged me to complain at that point with a view to regaining these costs. I did not at the time due to being otherwise engrossed and needing a break from the situation.

These are the events of last year alone. An obvious catalogue of errors that over a period of a few weeks that caused me great stress and contributed toward financial hardship. Now for the problems of this year:

My current occupational position has changed slightly. From June 2007 until early January 2008, I am undertaking a rotation into a Leadership Development program. For six months, I am working at a higher pay grade. This is a temporary contract. In January, my pay will decrease to its previous rate. With my recent deferment application, I again explained the contents on the second paragraph (above) and also this new information. Of the three months’ pay slips I was to send, one of them was over the deferment threshold. This was because of an unusually high number of extra duties and did not even reflect my new pay rate which was demonstrated on the most recent of the payslips. Because of the variable nature of my pay, I again sent six months’ pay slips. My application was refused, which I semi-understand. My issue here is that the SLC only takes a “snapshot” of pay. In a twelve-month period, my mean pay is well under the threshold. So I am financially penalised (by the SLC) for working too many weekends, bank holidays, nights etc. I’d be interested in SLC explaining this to my colleagues who have weekends off when I am working them! Or to patients that could experience inadequate staffing levels because I may choose to not work extra duties to cover sickness as I’ll be financially penalised for doing so!

So with my pay due to drop in January, I rang the SLC to ask when I could re-apply for deferment. The agent informed me that the threshold increases on the first of September (to over £2100, I didn’t catch the complete figure). This means I could be successful at deferment a second time. I asked why deferment applications weren’t sent until after this date, then, since whereas I was previously unsuccessful, I could now be successful in deferment application. This system means extra work for me, extra work for the SLC, potential financial ramifications for me and (again) high amounts of stress for me. The agent informed me that this is simply how the system works; deferment letters are sent a pre-determined time from the conclusion of the last successful deferment application period. I retorted that this means that as seems often the case in life, common sense failed to prevail in favour of an automated system.

I know from last years’ experience that although I will re-apply at the earliest opportunity, it won’t be processed in time to prevent the first payment from being taken.

The “final straw” that has prompted this letter is returning from work this afternoon (yes, working a Saturday; Sacrificing time with my girlfriend, instead earning the right to be penalised by the SLC) and finding my payslips returned to me, some two or three weeks post my being notified of having to begin repayments. All of my payslips are perforated horizontally, separating personal details (name, employee number etc) from gross and net pay. Three of my payslips have been returned to me with the halves separated. So I will now have to check my payslips against my bank statements to establish which sums of money pertain to which month. Two of these payslips will be sent back to you with my new deferment application. I have half a mind to send them “as received” for the SLC to work out which sums pertain to which months. It’s a waste of my time through no fault of my own. Its also plain careless of the agents of SLC

I immediately rang the SLC to voice this complaint early. The automated system took me through menu options and took my automated response ID before informing me that SLC was not open until Monday at 08:00. Surely this latter message should be first before taking up any more of my telephone bill?

This “final straw” may seem really quite trivial but in light of all that has gone before, I feel compelled to instigate communication with yourselves. Quite frankly I am livid. This may come across in the tone of this letter.

On the subject of payslips, in 2003 one of my payslips to be returned to me was posted to someone else. It eventually found its way to me via the trusts’ salaries department. I didn’t complain about this then, but this really is unacceptable.

In light of persistent errors, broken promises, a lack of simple sense, I now dread the future. Is this to be the case each year? I sincerely hope not. Quite simply this cannot continue.

So, what am I seeking from this letter? Well four things. First and most important, I would like assurance that none of this will happen to me again in the future. Alongside this, I would encourage the SLC to review their practices with regards deferment applications both in criteria and processing time. Secondly, and in conjunction with the above, assurance that this will not happen to anyone else. Third I would like acknowledgement that I accrued bank expenses through the fault of the SLC and therefore reimbursement. Fourthly, in view of how much stress I have endured through all of this as well as time taken with bank meetings and personal financial juggling, I am of the opinion that a degree of financial compensation to myself is appropriate, especially given that all of these issues are financial in nature.

I look forward to a (very delayed) response.

Yours faithfully

Followed by a second one a few days later:

11.9.07


Dear Sir

Further to my previous letter of complaint, dated 1.9.07, I send an addendum due to yet another mistake on the part of the Student Loans Company (SLC) since my having posted the original letter.

Last Monday (3.9.07) I rang the SLC to request a new deferment letter, as discussed in my previous letter. I was informed that this would hopefully be with me by the end of the week. Friday morning (7.9.07), I received a letter informing me of when payments would be taken from my account, but no application letter. I rang the SLC to check and was told that although the agent of Monday acknowledged my request, they didn’t act on it. This will obviously slow down my new deferment application.

To reiterate my previous letter, these persistent mistakes on the part of SLC are simply unacceptable, hence me feeling I have no choice but to make a formal written complaint.

Yours faithfully

The reply I got back was a simple appology. No mention at all of the data protection issue. The responder assured me that had I explained my circumstances in the first place then this would never have happened.

BUT I HAD F***ING EXPLAINED MY CIRCUMSTANCES. SEVERAL TIMES. IN WRITING.

I never got around to sending a reply to the reply, but I should have done.

My conclusion:

The SLC is a bunch of incompetent @rseholes.