Help With Student Loans - HERE!

alijolly

Hope someone can help. My son is 19, he applied for and was accepted for a place at Uni last year and had Student Finance agreed. Unfortunately in the summer he had a serious car accident, his place was deferred for entry 2014/15, I believe along with his Student Finance, he certainly recently received forms confirming his finance for next year so I assume this is the case.

It has now become clear that he has sustained some injuries which will not be healed, most importantly he will not have use of his right arm, he is right handed. The hospital has also recently discovered nerve/spinal injuries which were missed initially and require further investigation. He still intends to take up his place and we are looking into DSA. My concerns are that his situation is still fluctuating and we are still fairly vague on what he might need so don't really know what we are asking for or whether that will change over the duration of the course. Can further assessments be made after the initial one? Does he need to make another application for student finance as the initial one was obviously made when he was fit and well or does the DSA act as a top up?

Savvy_Sue

alijolly wrote: »

He still intends to take up his place and we are looking into DSA. My concerns are that his situation is still fluctuating and we are still fairly vague on what he might need so don't really know what we are asking for or whether that will change over the duration of the course. Can further assessments be made after the initial one? Does he need to make another application for student finance as the initial one was obviously made when he was fit and well or does the DSA act as a top up?

I can answer the last question, DSA is a top up, although if your son is getting DLA then there may be other benefits to that.

For the DSA, my suggestion would be to talk to student disability services at the Uni he hopes to go to: I'd be surprised if the award was finalised (or even properly looked at) before he'd arrived, although I realise in some cases a student can't even start before the basics are in place. But they're unlikely to sort everyone out before the start of the year, simply because not every one turns up, plus something which hasn't been a problem at school may be one at Uni, and vice versa.

nwc389

My son is currently doing his 2nd year supported by us and getting the basic loan due to our combined income. He has just had the 2nd payment of this years loan .
My husband was made redundant in December and our income is now my part time earnings of £12500 . I know we can have our income re-assessed but when will student finance apply this to his payments , I spoke to them and was told to fill in the income assessment form for 2013/2014 but that is going to show his redundancy payment ( which we now need to live on ) and not reflect what our actual income is .
Can anyone help -or have they any advice ?

mae

savetosave wrote: »

Hi
Hope you can help. My son who is now 20 is at uni in Coventry. He did a ucas funded course at a college there last year to get onto he course he wanted to do. He has had problems with dyslexia for which he has been given extra funding for equipment.
He was living with his girlfriend up there for 2 years and now he lives in halls but is not coping at all. He suffers from anxiety and being in Coventry with the bad memories of his break up and away from home means he has also had to go back onto anti depressants.
He has found a course locally that he could do but the college told him it would be better for him to drop out as they prob wouldn't accept him on the second year and he would have to start again. When he called student loans they said even if he dropped out now they wouldn't fund another first year. Is there anything you could suggest?

As I understand it they will fund a course plus an extra year so if he has never applied to Student Finance before apart from the year he is doing now then he should be eligible for the extra years funding.

Taiko

mae wrote: »

As I understand it they will fund a course plus an extra year so if he has never applied to Student Finance before apart from the year he is doing now then he should be eligible for the extra years funding.

Wrong. It's attendance, not funding, that counts. If they have studied within two academic years, then there will be no fee entitlement in year one of the new course.

New_York_No1_fan

nwc389 wrote: »

My son is currently doing his 2nd year supported by us and getting the basic loan due to our combined income. He has just had the 2nd payment of this years loan .
My husband was made redundant in December and our income is now my part time earnings of £12500 . I know we can have our income re-assessed but when will student finance apply this to his payments , I spoke to them and was told to fill in the income assessment form for 2013/2014 but that is going to show his redundancy payment ( which we now need to live on ) and not reflect what our actual income is .
Can anyone help -or have they any advice ?

Our income has yoyoed repeatedly whilst our 2 children have been at uni. On each occasion we have filled in a current year assessment form for the current year ie April 13-April 14, this then enables you to estimate your income for this year. Its a very short form unlike the one filled in for each academic year.

SF will then reassess you for the whole year 13 -14 and apply any additional loans and grants immediately for the whole year. Has always been treated promptly unlike the usual chaotic system SF usually have when applying for student loans!

In April you then fill in an actual year financial details form showing your exact figures as per P60's etc and if there are any discrepancies in your favour, you will get a further payment, or if you had originally overestimated for the year then they will recoup that money by adjusting the final loan payment your child would receive in this academic year.

I'm sorry I cannot advise re a redundancy payment however.

Hope this helps.

nwc389

I'm not really sure what to do , if I do a current year assessment for 13/14 then it will include husbands earnings for 9 months plus redundancy payment so my son will be no better off !!
I am thinking that I will have to wait until the new tax year when my husbands income will be £0 .
Does anyone know if my son would be able to get an increase from them on his third payment this academic year or would it only apply from September

New_York_No1_fan

nwc389 wrote: »

I'm not really sure what to do , if I do a current year assessment for 13/14 then it will include husbands earnings for 9 months plus redundancy payment so my son will be no better off !!
I am thinking that I will have to wait until the new tax year when my husbands income will be £0 .
Does anyone know if my son would be able to get an increase from them on his third payment this academic year or would it only apply from September

Because SF look at your income as a whole for year 13/14 and then divide the loan payments up into 3 payments, you would not get an adjustment for the 3rd payment only.

when you apply for student finance for your sons next academic year( year 14-15) you could do a current year assessment which would be based on estimated income from April 14 - April 15. However remember that if hubbie then goes and gets a job sometime over that time period, there could be a substantial change in his income, which when you supply SF with actual income after April15, it could result in a lot of student loan and maintenance being clawed back.

Its a gamble and as we can't see into the future, I would go for it in any case.

It'll all work out in the end one way or the other and your son may benefit from the money when its needed most ie when hubbie is unemployed.

Wikikenkey

I am trying to understand this as both my husband and daughter are applying to go to university on NHS bursaries.

Part of the form for my husbands application with his course starting in April asks under the "Person 1 Income Assessed Contribution: Other Dependant Children" section (I am assuming this is my section to fill out):

"Please complete details of any children who will be dependent on you in the forthcoming academic year.
Do you have any other children who will also be in further education for the same academic year as this student?
If you have another child(ren) who will also be attending a course in higher education and who will be in receipt of an income assessed award (normally a student loan) from your Local Authority, Student Finance England or other funding body, it should be possible to share the assessed contribution with them."

Does anyone know what is meant by the last phrase, "it should be possible to share the assessed contribution with them"? Does this mean less of a bursary for either my husband or daughter by sharing? My daughter has not applied yet as her course starts in September.

I understand that both will get less of a student loan because of the bursary but I am not sure whether or not to fill this section out if it is going to mean less of a bursary for either of them.

Thanks for your help.

Savvy_Sue

I don't think the bursary will be affected by the student loan, because my understanding is that it's not means-tested.

And I don't know what happens with the loan when there's a bursary involved. Does one get both?