Help With Student Loans - HERE!

student_advisor

You can contact the Student Advisor at the uni anyway, especially if you need help

andyrules

Jo_King wrote: »

Hi. A very quick question to see if anyone knows the answer. I have three years of student loans from way back 1995-1998 (in the early days) totalling around £5000 now. I've never met the minimum salary requirements for repayment, and, given some recent career choices, I'm not likely to in the next 10 years.

I've been told that if you reach 40 (10 years away) without reaching the minimum salary requirement, the debt will be written off. Does anyone know if this is right, or should I start thinking about paying them off out of my tiny salary now?

I'm in a similar position and cannot find information on this. We were told that loans taken out before the age of 40 not paid off by the time you reach 50 were written off. This was confirmed over the phone by slc during a query a few years back. Age 50 for me has been and gone and suddenly the magic age has changed to 60!

Is there any advisor on here that remembers this?

Jo, why do you want to pay anything off your loan if you don't meet the criteria?

james87

Hi is there anyone going into their 3rd/final year at uni who is taking the £3155 loan? if yes and if you have got your payment notification can you please tell me what the first payment in term 1 will be? thanks

sword

andyrules wrote: »

I'm in a similar position and cannot find information on this. We were told that loans taken out before the age of 40 not paid off by the time you reach 50 were written off. This was confirmed over the phone by slc during a query a few years back. Age 50 for me has been and gone and suddenly the magic age has changed to 60!

Is there any advisor on here that remembers this?

Jo, why do you want to pay anything off your loan if you don't meet the criteria?

I am afraid you have been misinformed on this there were some schemes relating to PGCE does this apply to you?

Davidboy

Can someone offer any advice please.

My daughter decided the course she started last Sept. at uni was wrong for her and made the brave choice to leave. The SLC paid the uni £1500 for the first lot of tuition fees, but the uni only charged £1200 for the time she was there as she left at Christmas.

Now she wanted to pay all the loans off as she is going to another uni this Sept and wanted to start with a clean slate. She asked the SLC for the amount she owed and they quoted £1500. That she paid.

Now the fun bit. She paid £1500 to the SLC, The SLC had already paid the Uni £1500, but the uni only want £1200, leaving £300 which has been overpaid. She cannot get this £300 back, no one will refund that money. The SLC say it is the Uni job to pay her back, the Uni say Via their lawyers that it is the SLC to pay her, both sides reject her request. The SLC are just so unhelpful and downright rude. We are thinking of taking the SLC to court or at very least to the FSA.

Does anyone out there have any suggestions. Bearing in mind this has been going on since Feb this year!!!

Any help appreciated.

Thanks.

D

student_advisor

I work at a College of FE & HE and have also heard this from the SLC. Obviously our finance dept. have quite firm issues on this.

There is a procedure for SLC to get the money from the uni. Believe me, it is not the first time SLC have overpaid a student or uni.

Can your daughter contact the student welfare/funding advisor at her previous uni? Even if she's left, they should should still be able to work with her. They would be able to advocate on her behalf with the SLC and have access to an HEI helpline which generally has more useful staff.

As there's no way that the uni is going to pay her (how do you explain it to the auditors?) you must go through the SLC. I would recommend making a formal complaint in writing to SLC headquarters in Glasgow, details here. Make sure to emphasize the stress caused by the situation and how unlikely an institution would be to refund money to somebody other than who paid it.

Hope this helps, keep us posted.

btw I have managed to get all of my students refunded through SLC, but that was during term-time, chances may be lower outside term-time.

Davidboy

SA, thanks for replying, but we have gone via her previous uni who have been helpful and even they cannot get any resolution via the SLC, there is a lady there who has bent over backwards and even gone via their lawyers to get the right information, she told me they spent a good couple of hours trying to get sense out of the SLC, and eventually had to give up. We have it in writing from the uni that it is down the SLC to refund the difference.

We called the SLC and quoted the letter from the uni, they said it is wrong, so I asked to speak to a supervisor or manager, the guy refused saying he was not able to do that, I asked why, he said his phone did not allow him to transfer calls. So I asked for the name of his supervisor or manager again he refused again I asked why his comment was it was against the data protection act for him to give out names, I kid you not.:rotfl: So I asked him to go and see his manager, he put me on hold and never came back, after 20 mins on a 0870 number we gave up.:mad:

We have written to the SLC stating all the problems and no reply.

I will try the head office address in Glasgow, thanks for that.

student_advisor

Complain as loudly as you can!

Send a copy of the uni letter and detail as much of the saga so far as you can remember, use times, dates and names if you can. Go through point by point, any phone calls you've made and the time spent with the uni advisor.

Also include a copy of the last letter you sent and state you have not even had an acknowledgment. Give them a time limit in which you would like a reply for this one. Be very explicit about what you expect them to do.

Use every opportunity to explain that

• it's unacceptable to put a young person through this (distressing etc),
• it's cost you financially for the 0870 calls (esp. on hold - disgusting, disrespectful treatment & verging on incompetent),
• the student should not be charged interest on the additional £300 (interest is charged from the start of the loan, but under the circumstances should not be added in this case in my opinion)
• anything else you can think of to lay it on thick!

You can also explain that you will be seeking legal advice etc, but you may want to wait and save it in case you need a further letter; it depends how heavy-handed you have been/want to be.

GOOD LUCK;)

btw whenever I ask to speak to a supervisor, they are always on a half-day and no longer in the office

andyrules

sword wrote: »

I am afraid you have been misinformed on this there were some schemes relating to PGCE does this apply to you?

Thanks for your reply.

There was no doubt about what was said at the time, and I was reminded during a conversation with an slc advisor a few years back that one of the loans would be written off on my 50th birthday.

I seem to remember something about pgces, but I think that was after this time. I did a pgce in 1998 and there were no schemes then.

Only one of the loans would be eligible to expire, and I sometimes wonder if they are lumping them together, although they are shown separately on statements.

Unfortunately, the only paperwork I have is a copy of the eligibility form which shows nothing about terms.

The poster that I was replying to obviously has this idea too, also I have posted on this a few times and someone else replied in a similar situation, so i think there are a few of us 'oldies' kicking around.

Sword, do you work for slc too?

MagicCat

Hello,

There's loads of good advice here, just wondering if someone can help me!

I'm starting an NHS funded course at the end of September. When I contacted my council (London Borough of Lambeth) about applying for a student loan, they said I had to wait until I got the info through about my bursary...which I've only just received. I'm moving to be closer to uni next week, to London Borough of Brent - so should I be contacting Lambeth (where i used to live) about my Student Loan, or Brent? I know the application is late, but I had to wait for the bursary info.

Any thoughts appreciated - many thanks!