My student daughter cannot get a student account!

suefoodtech

Any advice please?. My daughter had a gap year and worked before uni. She is now in her second year, and penniless...aren't all students?!. She decided to apply for a student account and overdraft to help her and was declined by Nat West and halifax. Further research via Experian, shows she has a poor credit rating, as she missed a mobile phone payment (by 3 days) during the year she worked. I am forced to pay out all the time as her student loan does not even cover her rent, let alone food, travel, clothes, uni field trips etc etc......, What,if anything, can be done?
Thanks.
Sue

Derivative

If her student loan does not cover rents you are probably expected to contribute.
Not all students are penniless - we just have to budget, hard.

And not everyone gets a student account - it is after all a 0% overdraft, hard to get a 0% loan anywhere else.

I would suggest a proper budget for food, clothes, etc. My travel bills come to 6 trips to Uni and back, anything else is bicycle or a walk.

Experian_company_representative

Payments missed by just three days should not be registered as late on a credit report. Write to the Experian contact centre and ask them to query this with the phone provider.

James Jones

Fiddlestick

suefoodtech wrote: »

Any advice please?.

Does she have a job?

If not, tell her to get one.

Sorry to be blunt but I know of no students these days who can make it through University without having to work part time.

I had to do it and everyone I knew did as well.

jen245

I had 2 part time jobs when I was at uni!

Derivative

Fiddlestick wrote: »

Sorry to be blunt but I know of no students these days who can make it through University without having to work part time.

Hardly anyone I know has to work PT. The system is set up so that you don't have to. Parents are expected to contribute if their income is above the threshold.

Working in holidays maybe, working during term time, no.

*Kat*

You must know rich people then? My mum earns less than 15k a year. Impossible for her to support me through uni. *sigh* And student loan isn't enough (not that I want it any bigger) so I got a job!! :P

dtsazza

*Kat* wrote: »

You must know rich people then? My mum earns less than 15k a year. Impossible for her to support me through uni.

That's exactly why parental contributions are means-tested. I don't know how generous the mean limits are, but I know that my parents were assumed to not be able to spend anything to support my university education, hence I got tuition fees fully paid for by the LEA. This was 2002-2005 though, so no idea if that's still the case nowadays.

Derivative

*Kat* wrote: »

You must know rich people then? My mum earns less than 15k a year. Impossible for her to support me through uni. *sigh* And student loan isn't enough (not that I want it any bigger) so I got a job!! :P

I am in the same boat. Student Finance give me £6400 loan/grant combined. More than enough during term time, the issue is with helping family out outside term time, as I said.

There is no need to work during term time unless your parents are tight or you get the wallet out at every opportunity.
The "rich people" are those that are in trouble as you have to rely on parental contributions. Under 15k you live in relative bliss.

kelloggs36

I hate it that parents are supposed to contribute towards their adult children - they are adults for some purposes, yet children when it comes to financial support but not from the government! What is wrong is that they look at the headline income figure, with no regards to the living costs of the household - there may be some who have some disposable income, but many do not, and whilst an allowance for other children is factored in, it bears no relation to the real costs involved - leaving a fantasy figure of disposable income. It is not so easy to get a part-time job for students either - my dd has graduated and is looking for full-time or part-time work. She has had a few interviews, but employers can afford to be very choosy - and although she has a degree and a wealth of experience in bar work, some bars claim she isn't experienced enough. There are hundreds of applicants for a handful of minimum-wage jobs, and it is soul destroying.

Derivative

I agree with the above statement and believe that loans and grants should be equivalent across all students, for the exact reasons you've stated. After all - it is the students that will be paying back these loans in most cases.

As it stands though, the system is indeed based on parental contribution - there is no other reason to assess household income.