MSE News: Thousands of students hit by loan payment delays

Former_MSE_Guy

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"A mammoth 175,000 students are still waiting to receive loans and grants even though their courses have already started, an investigation revealed today ...."

Read the full story:

Thousands of students hit by loan payment delays

Elsterap

This story seems to come about every year, and the scale of it always seems dramatic. Here is a quote from the article:

"It also said the number of outstanding applications included those which had been cancelled, those started online but which had not been submitted for processing, or where more information was needed.

The organisation also said it was waiting to confirm the attendance of tens of thousands of students at university before releasing payments."

Last year it took me 3 weeks into the year before i could finally convince my university that i should be on the course, and only then did i get my payment. The SLC were very prompt after that.

This year, i submitted my application a little before September (way after the date set by SLC), and got my loan into my bank account 2 days after uni confirmed me as enrolled in October.

And when these figures include people who haven't pressed the submit button on the online assessment, people who have cancelled all together or where more information is needed, you wonder how the figure is not higher? Surely every year they have a certain amount of people who apply and then don't even go to uni as well?

The SLC have always done a good job for me, and lets face it, they deal with students who have just come out of college...not the type you'd expect to fill forms in as soon as possible. Add to that the brick wall help i got from my uni last year. I think the SLC do a good job, with a difficult bunch to work with.

scrounger_2

My son has been waiting three months for his money. This is his third year at Uni this time he had to send his passport off why I dont know, after three years you would think he was the same person and details.When we rang to find out the delay, we were kept on hold for 45mins.The person we finally talked to said the passport had gone missing.So here we go ANOTHER problem and wait for something to happen.

eicats

I can't believe someone can be that shortsighted to say that this problem is restricted to college students who can't fill a form out. This is my 5th year of applying for student finance, as I have started my PGCE this year. I sent my application in by May, nearly two months ahead of the deadline for new students and am still waiting for my application to be processed now. First they told me that I am adopted (my Dad found this very funny and asked why no-one had told him this!), then told me I did in fact not exist! After proving my existance, they located my file, said well we can see all the information we need on you, but send it in again as we can't use it as that was for last year. Its a complete farce. There is 6 people processing over a million applications, so its no surprise theres such a big backlog. I'm already 3 weeks into my course....just hoping I have some money by Xmas!

fermi

The SLC have quite blatantly lied to me regarding past loans, so not surprised that they continue to be incompetent.:rolleyes:

rb10

Rather than giving these (fairly meaningless) figures, it would be nice to see what percentage of people who applied on time have still not had their loans.

Taiko

The majority of the cancelled ones though are down to SFE mistakes I'm afraid. I witness it daily.

williham

Applied when the applications started, got my loan the day i started uni (3rd year), so did my girlfriend, her friends, and all my friends.

MissPop

I applied in April, and finally got the basic loan (I am in London) yesterday, so I could pay my rent (6 days late). I still haven't been told if or when I will receive the rest of my loan/grant (I should get the full amount of maintenance grant and more loan) and I literally spent every penny of the loan I received yesterday on my term's rent, so I am currently living on my £500 overdraft (in central London!) until SF sort it out and get to my application - I phoned them in the last week of September and they said they were still opening post from July, when they requested additional information from me in August (after I had already sent it in June, they decided I needed to send it again for some reason)

I'm so irritated by this whole debacle - sending me inaccurate letters, requesting information I had already sent, not being able to get through on the phones for love nor money...

kymbogs

It is incredibly frustrating to hear the representatives of SFE repeat in the media that 'All applications made on time have been dealt with' when it's clear this only applies to applications that had no issues, nothing going missing, or people being informed late in the day that further evidence was required. Sort of makes me feel like they are saying 'If you haven't got your money yet, it's your own fault'.

I'm lucky in that I have received my maintenance loan and grant. However I am still waiting to be assessed for childcare grant and parents learning allowance. The PLA is no biggie as I am hoping to put it away when I get it anyway, to save up for the summer months. CCG is another matter...I received my first nursery invoice today and don't have the means to pay it other than the 15% I ought to be paying once SFE sorts out the other 85%

I applied for CCG in June then received a letter in mid August asking me to send another CCG form - I had put childcare costs per term rather than per week, it said. Well I had the photocopy of my original form and it ASKED for childcare costs for term 1, term 2 etc. The new form they sent me in the post did say weekly costs - my original didn't say this. In the letter I got with this it also asked me to send my childrens birth certificates to support the application - this was the first time I'd been asked to send these otherwise I'd have sent them in the first place!

So I filled in the new form, got it signed by the nursery, sent off birth certificates. I received the certificates back last week and in a seperate envelope, a letter asking me to send the birth certificates. I called to ask if this was a mistake and was told that although there was a note on the system acknowledging receipt of the certificates they were not in my scanning file so to send them again. To the back of the queue.

I'm beginning to think I might have to apply for a hardship loan to cover the nursery costs until the CCG comes in and am not looking forward to this - Ive heard horror stories in the corridors about an awful application process, having to provide 1001 forms of evidence of hardship, 3 months bank statements and a written explanation for all debits over £100?! OK maybe someone was exaggerating somewhere...

PS just realised how long my post is, I am sorry but I am incapable of writing a short post!

muzzer47

My wife completed her application with all relevent documentation in good time 3 months ago. SLC's favourite trick is to "pretend" they are processing your application until you eventually ring them to find out what the hell's going on, then they make up something about needing "further documentation", which they never requested originally, but pretend that they did in order to fob you off / delay you.

After we sent everything they asked, a month passes before they return all the documents to us. So far so good I think. Then there's another huge delay. The course is about to start and still no loan. So we ring them again, "Erm, we never got the documentation we asked for" YES YOU DID YOU BUNCH OF NUMPTIES!!!! :mad::mad: And I have the Special delivery receipt to prove your utter imcompetance!! It's funny that if you never received it, how did you send it back?? So we send everything yet again, what can possibly go wrong this time? It's ok I don't mind spending £6 on special delivery every time you want me to resend everything!

The course has started 2 weeks ago and we're so broke we're eating out of dumpsters. Thanks SLC.:rolleyes: