Help With Student Loans - HERE!

brettcta

_shel wrote: »

You mean maintenance loan not grant?

I did, apologies.

I managed to speak to a manager after yet again getting another set of figures from another advisor at SFE. To say they couldn’t tell their !!!! from their elbow would be too kind.

MichaelD2019

Hi, I'm working part-time and about to start my postgraduate course (also part-time). I've managed to get my employer to cover my tuition fees and I get a good enough salary to save roughly £600 a month!

Is it worth taking the loan and using the money to top up my Lifetime ISA and another high-interest bank account which is roughly at 5% for the first12 months? Any advice on this would be great.

Starrystarrynight1

It sounds like your wife has an underlying eligibility to apply for the allowances but, as projected costs are offset against household income or a threshold is applied, she might have zero entitlement. The best I can suggest is send in everything asked for (evidence of children's ID etc) as requested and then wait to see if any entitlement is listed on your wife's award letter.

brettcta wrote: »

Can anyone point us in the right direction for assistance with parent learning allowance & childcare grants?

My wife’s just starting a PGCE and it’s taken ages for SFE to process her application.

She’s eligible for the full maintenance grant and we applied for the childcare & parent learning allowance as our daughter (2) will need to go into nursery whilst my wife’s on placement and uni.

We meet all of the criteria on the SFE website for the above funding but the wife’s finally had an email today from SFE to state that we’re not eligible for any of the funding because of our household income.

She’s called up and was told that the threshold is £25,000 - our household income was below this last year and will be lower still this year because she’s left her job to go to uni. We’ve called back now and the thresholds gone even lower - £13,xxx.

I’m getting the impression the 2 people we’ve spoken to don’t know their !!!! from their elbow. All the 2nd guy kept telling us is that the information on the website is generic. How can eligibility criteria be generic - you’re either eligible or you’re not. There’s no mention of ‘you have to meet these criteria, oh and by the way you have to be on a very low household income’.

Due to the time it’s taken SFE to process the applications, she’s called regularly and has been told that she was eligible but they’re just taking longer to send the letters. On the back of this we’ve paid a non-refundable deposit of £150 to the nursery to secure a place.

The first call today she was told that a letter was sent to her early August telling her she wasn’t eligible and they’ve just sent a follow up email today.

Can any one shed some light on what the eligibility criteria actually is and if we’re being given the run round. It’s likely that my wife’ll have to pull out of the course now as we can’t afford £600/month nursery fees and we can’t get anyone to mind our daughter for 5 full days whilst I’m at work and my wife’s at nursery.

JeffMason

Hello,

I've got a pre 1998 loan, my freelance work has meant that I've never paid any off and I'm now two years away from it being written off. I've recently got a PAYE job though and my pay might go just above the threshold for deferment this year.

My question is, what's the top limit this year that you can earn and still defer? I read something about it being £30,737 but then somewhere else saw £32,347...

And will I have to pay much back? Is it related to how much you earn above the threshold? Is it a monthly payment? Will I just pay up until it is written off?

Thanks all.

Keeson00

Hello there
I am in a tricky situation. I am currently in the armed forces and studying for degree in open university. Three years went fine with student loans but when i applied for this semster it was first accepted and now rejected. I have stayed in the United Kingdom for the last 15 and half year. My passport have the residence permit section 8(4). Now they student finance england is saying i can't apply for loan as per rules from home office. Any advices is much appreciated!!

EV1

Hi there. This is my 1st post so please bear with me! My company has received a letter today from HMRC stating that they need to start taking deductions from my pay regarding my Student Loan plan type 01. I have received no notice about this and have never had to pay contributions before. This loan was taken out for a PGCE course in 1999 and is with the Student Loan Company (SLC). I currently have 3 other undergraduate loans taken out in 1995,1996 and 1997 which I've deferred payment on until next year and these are the old mortgage-style loans. My understanding was that these had to be all fully paid off before I was liable to have to start making payments on my loan from 1999 (the plan 1 type loan). I have been in touch with Erudio who told me to contact SLC (though they were all with 1 company when I took out the loans originally). SLC are stating that I'm wrong and that I do have to make the plan 1 repayments. I'm really confused about this as I don't understand why I've not had to do so previously. Can anyone advise or help at all? Have the plan 1 thresholds recently significantly dropped by a massive amount, for example? Thanks loads!

[Deleted User]

EV1 wrote: »

Hi there. This is my 1st post so please bear with me! My company has received a letter today from HMRC stating that they need to start taking deductions from my pay regarding my Student Loan plan type 01. I have received no notice about this and have never had to pay contributions before. This loan was taken out for a PGCE course in 1999 and is with the Student Loan Company (SLC). I currently have 3 other undergraduate loans taken out in 1995,1996 and 1997 which I've deferred payment on until next year and these are the old mortgage-style loans. My understanding was that these had to be all fully paid off before I was liable to have to start making payments on my loan from 1999 (the plan 1 type loan). I have been in touch with Erudio who told me to contact SLC (though they were all with 1 company when I took out the loans originally). SLC are stating that I'm wrong and that I do have to make the plan 1 repayments. I'm really confused about this as I don't understand why I've not had to do so previously. Can anyone advise or help at all? Have the plan 1 thresholds recently significantly dropped by a massive amount, for example? Thanks loads!

If you earn enough you pay your loan. Whoever told you your other loans had to be cleared was wrong. The earning threshold changed and can be found on the government website.

EV1

_shel wrote: »

If you earn enough you pay your loan. Whoever told you your other loans had to be cleared was wrong. The earning threshold changed and can be found on the government website.

Thanks for the reply. I must have been mistaken then but it's not the sort of thing I normally get wrong. I'll have to look back 20 years for my original paperwork - obviously then it was just the 1 company I was dealing with before the mortgage style loans got sold off. It is odd though, as I've earned above the threshold for the PGCE loan before and not had to pay that one back. Maybe that was because I was possibly paying the other ones back at that point. I've literally had no communication from the Student Loans Company since 2013, no annual statement or anything and then suddenly my employer gets this letter. It would have been nice if they'd had notified me too!

[Deleted User]

Have they always had your current address? You definitely should have been getting statements.

Ed-1

EV1 wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I must have been mistaken then but it's not the sort of thing I normally get wrong. I'll have to look back 20 years for my original paperwork - obviously then it was just the 1 company I was dealing with before the mortgage style loans got sold off. It is odd though, as I've earned above the threshold for the PGCE loan before and not had to pay that one back. Maybe that was because I was possibly paying the other ones back at that point. I've literally had no communication from the Student Loans Company since 2013, no annual statement or anything and then suddenly my employer gets this letter. It would have been nice if they'd had notified me too!

There is the PGCE option for those who are repaying a mortgage-style loan and an income-contingent loan:
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20190510151441/http://www.studentloanrepayment.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=93,6678629&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

The historical Plan 1 thresholds are:
https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20190510151410/http://www.studentloanrepayment.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=93,6678511&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL