Help With Student Loans - HERE!

AuburnMid

Hi

I had a loan with my first degree in 1999-2001 (when they first came in following Grants; I had a grant for my first year undergraduate). This has been slowly ticking over and being paid off.

Fast forward to 2009 and I started a second degree and had a further student loan.

I've noticed some info on the MSE pages about repayment timing following loans.

I qualified in August 2012 and started working in the last week of October 2012 (NHS), first salary payment in December 2012. Having checked my old payslips I can see student loan payments were commenced immediately. The amount has always stayed about the same so I can only assume it was for the entire amount owed and not just the 1999-2001 loan.

Question is, am I eligible for repayment? Is this an overpayment?

Thanks

Ed-1

AuburnMid wrote: »

Hi

I had a loan with my first degree in 1999-2001 (when they first came in following Grants; I had a grant for my first year undergraduate). This has been slowly ticking over and being paid off.

Fast forward to 2009 and I started a second degree and had a further student loan.

I've noticed some info on the MSE pages about repayment timing following loans.

I qualified in August 2012 and started working in the last week of October 2012 (NHS), first salary payment in December 2012. Having checked my old payslips I can see student loan payments were commenced immediately. The amount has always stayed about the same so I can only assume it was for the entire amount owed and not just the 1999-2001 loan.

Question is, am I eligible for repayment? Is this an overpayment?

Thanks

First of all both loans are plan 1 (pre-2012) loans. So repayment is due at 9% of income over £18,935 on both. The loans for the first course entered repayment in April 2002. If you paid anything before then then you will be eligible for a refund of these. Any outstanding balance on these loans is wiped at age 65 (as they were taken out for a course starting prior to 2006).

For the loans for the second course, this part of the balance entered repayment in April 2013. Any outstanding balance on these loans is written off 25 years from April 2013. If you still had an outstanding balance on your earlier loans then repayment will have been made for those and no refund is due.

As repayments for both loans are merged into a single repayment of 9% over the plan 1 repayment threshold, the only difference the second loans entering repayment makes is that some of the repayment is paying off those loans in proportion to the outstanding balance. E.g. if the loans from the first course have an outstanding balance of £3,000 and the loans for the second course have an outstanding balance of £17,000 then 3/20 of the repayment goes towards the first loans and 17/20 goes towards the second loans.

GaenorA

My daughter has just completed 3 years at university - she was originally funded for a 4 year honors course but has decided to specialize in one of her fields and so has now been accepted on another course at a conservatoire. Originally she was at uni in Scotland and fees were paid as she is Scottish born, now she will be attending college in Wales and so we have to find funding. She has written to loads of charities, applied for bursaries and scholarships..... but not much success so far. We want to help her to support her passion for her future career but cannot afford to pay her fees as well as her living costs, especially as we will be having a second child attending uni next year. Anyone got any ideas for funding, bursaries that will pay out, charities that will support future classical musicians, student loan advice??????

GaenorA

Any help gratefully received! Daughter finished 3 years of her MA (ordinary) in Scotland but want to specialize in music rather than stay an extra year to get her honors degree, was originally funded for 4 years by student loan company. Fees were covered as Scottish born attending Scottish university. Now transferring to music conservatoire in Wales, fees not covered and so we need to find tuition fee money as well as all the other costs. Was told she could still apply for maintenance loan to cover living expenses - we are paying her rent. Is there any way to apply for help with tuition fees? We want to help all we can but are not able to fund this especially as we have another child due to go to university next year. Both of them will have graduated from the American school system where all of their friends and peers are able to get lots of scholarships to help with college, and despite being amongst the top students in their year they are unable to get scholarships that everyone else gets because they are British - sometimes being a military kid sucks. Any help gratefully received - she is spending hours daily applying for bursaries and has been doing so for weeks, but so far no luck

silvercar

GaenorA, would she be eligible for a student loan for the tuition fees?

This link here seems to suggest that she could receive a loan upto £9250 for fees, in addition to maintenance loan.

sheramber

Did they explain why she could not get tuition fee support? Is it because the course is available in Scotland?

GaenorA

I think it is because it is her second degree - she could not apply for this degree from the start as she was not a high enough standard - the subject was not taught in school here in Florida. After 3 years back home in the UK her standard of music playing and knowledge made her eligible to apply to a specialist music college and she auditioned and was accepted - we just need to fund it now!

GaenorA

How did you manage to get another loan for tuition fees for your second degree? We are in the same situation and have hit a brick wall

GaenorA

Can i ask how you managed to apply and receive a second student loan please - it could be that things have changed since you received yours, but we are trying to get funding for a second degree

silvercar

GaenorA wrote: »

Can i ask how you managed to apply and receive a second student loan please - it could be that things have changed since you received yours, but we are trying to get funding for a second degree

The general rule is that if you have funding for the first course at each level. So if you have had funding for say a BTEC course, you can then get funding for a BA/ BSc.

If she has a first degree and this would lead to an honours degree, there may be funding. If so, she would just apply in the normal way and as this course is outside Scotland, a tuition fee loan should be available.

If the student loans company decided that she counted as dropping out of her first course then there should be funding based on the initial number of years plus one. So a course that lasted 4 years, less the 3 already funded, plus 1 = 2 years more funding. Though of course this means then accepting that she dropped out rather than completed a lower qualification earlier.

My gut reaction is that somewhere in the system they need to identify that she is now out of Scotland, so needs the tuition fee loan as well as maintenance, rather than any funding decision making process. But I may be wrong.