Get higher loan offer from Student Loans Co

nibs82_uk

A few helpful tips for those applying for student loans or will in the future with parents on low income or parents who will not support you through uni:

When your Local Education Authority (LEA) assesses how much loan you are entitled to recieve each year, they assess your parents income and household earnings to help calculate the figure. This is called "means testing" in the SLC loan application forms.

eg parents earn lots, you will get offered less loan each year.
parents earn little you will get offered more each year.

Even if you opt out from having you parents incomes "means tested" you will get offered the lower amount of loan you can take out. So if your parents are not supporting you or have a low income and don't want to be means tested then you will lose out.

To avoid all this and get the full amount of loan entitlement to anyone you can take some simple steps. By taking these steps it made it easier for me to live at university as I had more loan money to play with. This will however be payed back when you graduate and start earning over 10,000. But who cares, an extra 1,000 pounds on top of your loan isn't going to be that much of a big deal. I hardly notice my loan repayments.

Instructions:
Fill out the loan application form as per normal, except when it requests your parents finacial details for means testing just select the option that you do not wish them to be means tested.

Next write a covering letter saying that regardless of your parents income, they will not be supporting you finacialy through university and therefore you request the maximum possible amount on offer in order to help support yourself. Sign it and send it in with your application forms.

I got the full amount each year.

Note: If your parents are on low income then you will receive the full entitlement anyway. But if you dont then try my method.

Optional additional steps once you get to uni:
Once you get to uni and money is still difficult go see your Student Union advisors and ask to apply for a hardship loan or fund. The name of this fund may have changed since 2003. They will give you the neccesary forms to fill in. This is wacked ontop of your student loan. I got an extra 500 a year. Do this soon after you get to uni cos it takes a few weeks to get processed and there is a limited fund.

Doing all the above made my life at uni more comfortable as I had dig financial difficulties. My total loan was at the end was around 14,000.

pavlovs_dog

nibs82_uk wrote:

Optional additional steps once you get to uni:
Once you get to uni go see your Student Union advisors and ask to apply for a hardship loan or fund. They will give you the neccesary forms to fill in. This is wacked ontop of your student loan. I got an extra 500 a year. Do this soon after you get to uni cos it takes a few weeks to get processed and there is a limited fund.

hope you're not suggesting people do this just to get more money for boozing. the hardship fund, as the name suggests, is for people in true hardship, people who would probably have to drop out were it not for the extra assistance. its about making it possible to survive until their financial situation eases up a bit, not to make life "more comfortable"

stuwilky

The SLC dont assess anyone. Your LEA do.

The actions re your student loan are highly unusual and I would suggest you dropped lucky

And as for your comments about the hardship fund, firstly it doesnt exist anymore because of people trying to take advantage. Its replacement the "access to learning" fund is a lot harder to get, and a lot quicker so those in genuine need get access to their funds quicker, within the same day on occasion.

nibs82_uk

Sorry if I led anyone to believe I was giving any underhand advise. I am not a trained solicitor or financial advisor and therefore didn't think of the legal implications of the way I wrote my advice. This is after all a forum for the average Joe and not the financial elite.

I just want to give advice for those who may or do have the finacial difficulties I had. It isn't all that clear what solutions are out there when you are in that situation. Luckily I had advice from people who had previous difficulties before who saw me struggling.

I have made corrections in my posting in italics. Anymore corrections needed then please post a nice reply stating the corrections needed bearing in mind im trying to give advice, not be underhand or illegal.

I also did not suggest or say that I lied on my application. I did not suggest that anyone else lie either. I have reworded some sections as the above replies obviously interpreted it wrongly.

Thanks

student100

Thank you for making those changes. It just makes everything a lot clearer.

crana999

nibs82_uk wrote:

Sorry if I led anyone to believe I was giving any underhand advise. I am not a trained solicitor or financial advisor and therefore didn't think of the legal implications of the way I wrote my advice.

Could this be a good defence for getting caught doing something naughty?

"I'm sorry officer, I'm not a trained solicitor, so I didn't think about the legal implications of what I did"

dag_2

I think nibs has offered excellent advice.

Unless I'm very much mistaken, your parents' income isn't assessed unless you're under 25. Even if you are under 25, your parents' income isn't assessed if you can be shown to have lived independently for a while.

I'm not sure what counts as "living independently", but I'm pretty sure that rules exist. Examples include being able to prove you've worked for some time, lived away from parents for some time, or having a child of your own.

Point is - nibs advice might work, but then again, it might not. As far as I'm aware, there's no separate procedure for the recovery of overpaid student loans. Even if you do get more student loan than you were entitled to, you still only pay it back in the normal way - provided that you didn't apply fraudulently.

I'll check this - but I'm not a lawyer.

as for pavlov's remark ...

hope you're not suggesting people do this just to get more money for boozing. the hardship fund, as the name suggests, is for people in true hardship, people who would probably have to drop out were it not for the extra assistance. its about making it possible to survive until their financial situation eases up a bit, not to make life "more comfortable"

... to me, that smacks of a Victorian-era distinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. My advice is, don't let other people moralize about the truthfulness of your hardship. There's only one person who knows how true your hardship is - and that's you.

student100

dag wrote:

as for pavlov's remark ...<snip>... to me, that smacks of a Victorian-era distinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor. My advice is, don't let other people moralize about the truthfulness of your hardship. There's only one person who knows how true your hardship is - and that's you.

Are you seriously suggesting that, if you were in charge of dishing out the hardship funds, you would think that someone who had enough money to live reasonably comfortably but couldn't afford to go out boozing and clubbing several nights a week (ah, bless...) was just as deserving as someone who couldn't afford to pay the rent or feed themselves on anything more than Value Beans on Reduced to Clear toast?
If so, I'm very glad you've not got control of the pursestrings...

pavlovs_dog

^which, as my original post was is about, is why the hardship fund is there, not to afford a 'lifestyle' to the poor little rich princesses whose daddy's are no longer prepared to keep up a constant supply of prada handbags and gucci watches.

moralise hardship all you want, but good luck proving to the financial support people that the fact that you cant afford to go out and live the typical student lifestyle is a more deserving case than someone who cant afford to eat or pay their course fees.