despair at student finance-don't know what to do

divastrop

I don't hold out much hope, then if after telling you what you are able to get and you agreeing to their terms, they then take ages to actually pay the money

When I rang the time before last I got a very patronising, rude person on the phone , but the 'supervisor' he put me through to was no better. I have certainly experienced the thing of being given different info every time I ring. The supervisor I spoke to today basically said that I won't get anywhere with SLC as they are just a call centre pretty much and all the assessments are done by SFE who cannot be contacted by phone. I said that I could well understand why that is.

divastrop

Rang them again today as something had changed on the online account thingy. I've been told my application has been proccessed now and is awaiting local authority approval, and that I should hear in the next week or so.:cool:

Catbag

That's great news

Taiko

Which is great, considering your local authority don't have anything to do with your application anymore....

wobblymummy

I thought the payment schedule was started by the Uni entering the barcode on their system (from the offer letter from Student finance) to verify that you have enrolled, and this happened in September at the beginning....

stephyt23

Ah good old student finance, it will soon become like a swear word to you. I'm just about to start my second year and not ONE person on my course last year (out of 150) had a good experience with them. Loads of friends were left in overdrafts because payments were really late and their rent money had to come out (luckily i'm living at home but i was still pretty far in my overdraft thanks to late payments).

It has all been caused since it went centralised, my brother graduated the year before I started when it was still your local authority who dealt with everything and he had 3 hassle free years with all paperwork back within 2 days of sending. I'm still waiting for my parents documents to be returned which i sent off in Feb!

divastrop

Taiko wrote: »

Which is great, considering your local authority don't have anything to do with your application anymore....

Yes, I was rather confused about this as I have never heard any mention of LA other than that was who used to do SF before last year (and that the LA's systems were far more efficient!). I really don't understand what is going on now, why would they say that?!

southoftheriver

I can't type about SFE without getting angry. I started my course on June 21st and still have no money. Things are pretty dire now. Despite receiving confirmation of my loan amount in Feb I have been told the following things.

1. You did not apply for your loan and need to send a maintenance loan request form (I have now done this twice).

2. You are not entitled to any loan because you have been at uni too long (this is my seventh year but my only degree, I do medicine).

3. You have to wait five weeks before the course starts for a payment schedule (I started three weeks ago).

This is just the !!!!!!!! I can remember. I am absolutely fuming.

Sorry I know that isn't helpful to you but just needed to offload!

Catbag

wobblymummy wrote: »

I thought the payment schedule was started by the Uni entering the barcode on their system (from the offer letter from Student finance) to verify that you have enrolled, and this happened in September at the beginning....

No, that's not quite correct. The verification of your attendance does occur that way, but that is basically just the uni approving the release of funds from student finance. Your payment schedule should be sent to you around about 5-6 weeks prior to the start of your course. To date that appears to be the only thing that SF managed to get right for me, grrr.

divastrop

Actually spoke to somebody helpful today . She said my application has been approved for the full amount of everything I applied for, but she said they didn't seem to have sent me the letter yet so she sorted that out.
Has anyone ever actually got their SF on time? It is quite worrying all these posts I keep reading about people having to wait months for any money. Was there any reason for the delays last year and is it likely to happen again? I will need to let the landlord and nursery know if I'm not going to be able to pay for some considerable time when the time comes.