Help with student finance website

cappuchinokid

I am helping my godson complete his forms online and having completed the student income section he remembered that he had a summer job and should have put something in there. That section is showing as completed on the application and there doesn't seem to be any way of going back in to edit it. He also couldn't link through to the UCAS site to identify his application as the login details weren't accepted, so decided to try manual search for a course and he now can't get back to the page where it gives you an option to either link to UCAS or search manually.

I am used to the Inland Revenue tax on line and it does let you go back and review and change things but I can't find any way of doing it with student finance.

Can anyone help? Is there a way or will he need to ring them and get the whole thing reset so we can have another go?

The application is saved but hasn't been submitted. Help!

Lokolo

I wouldn't worry about it.

If it hasn't been submitted it can still be edited though...

cappuchinokid

That's the problem though - we can't get back to the original section that was completed wrongly, I can't work out how to do this.

Helix

If you can't edit the pages then I think the only option is to complete it on paper and post it in. I don't think they can reset it, you can try though.

MrsManda

Is he trying to prove he's an independent student?
If not, I don't think he needs to give his income from last year. In order to be income assessed as a dependent student it's his parents who need to fill out the income part.

You can call them to see if you can edit it or fill out the form on paper.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_195672.pdf

BarryW

cappuchinokid wrote: »

I am used to the Inland Revenue tax on line and it does let you go back and review and change things but I can't find any way of doing it with student finance.

Can anyone help? Is there a way or will he need to ring them and get the whole thing reset so we can have another go?

At the risk of hi-jacking this thread or indeed digging up a thread from 2009 about how rubbish the Student Finance website is - it does appear that it still is rubbish.

I consider myself computer literate and work in software development but I am going to have to give up and revert to paper. That doesn't bode well for the rest of the process.

We have got ourselves to a position where where (like you) we cannot go forward or backward - I did get through to someone on the phone and it was just a case of "computer says no" - good luck if you call them but don't set your expectations to high.

According to my daughter most of here peers who have tried the online system have decide to go down the "form and post" route.

This weekend I was looking to have completed all the Student Finance stuff for our twins - it is going to be a long weekend.

There I feel better for that - now where's my pen.

Anastasia

I always do student finance forms on paper for my two after a farcical experience online the first time.

Another thing I have learned is to get your young people to call once to Student Finance and give 'Consent to Share' verbally over the phone giving you permission to deal with any problems when they have gone off to uni. They have to give a password for you to use to ring up on their behalf.

ellay864

Last year we had problems linking my account to my son for his application...he gave written permission for me to talk to them but we still had to resort to paper. This year he logged in and did his bit, I logged in to support it ok but my partner couldn't remember his password. When he tried to reset it we kept getting thrown out. We tried rechecking actual reference and got a different ref number, but that wasn't linked to my son! We rang SFE (who of course would only speak to my partner, not to me) and they said the account we'd tried first (the one they refer to in their e-mail) should be accessible and asked him his date of birth and NI number...when he told them, they said neither matched what they had. In the end they said they'd disable that reference and that they'd set it so my son could link the other ref number to his account. They asked to speak to my son who was still at uni and refused to speak to me without authorisation; when I told them he had given that, they said they couldnt access it as our accounts weren't properly linked!! When my son then tried link in my partner's new account he found that he couldnt access his own account - rang them to be told his account had a fatal error and they couldn't retrieve it online so we had to send paper copy. I have no faith at all in their system, and in with the forms we've put a letter spelling out the problems with my partners references so they can't say we haven't given them all information. We've also sent recorded delivery and will chase up with them as I just don't want to give them any excuses to say we 'owe' them anything
Last year my friends daugher applied with no problems but when she failed to get in to her first choice uni she rang them to tell them where she was going...only to be told her details weren't right. Her account had been transferred to another girl with the same name and if she had got into her first choice uni she'd have had no idea anything was wrong until the money didn't get paid!
The system is an absolute farce, so many people have had problems with it and it seems there is just no support online at all

cappuchinokid

Just to say - we did get it sorted in the end but had to put the course details in manually, lucky it was the only one he had applied for as it a continuation/top up of the foundation degree. He has now had confirmation of funding for next academic year.

My advice would be:
keep all passwords and log in details safe and in the same place, you will need them year to year (student and supporter passwords as students have a habit of losing things).
Get all the information you think you will need and then run through the form without completing any section, you will find you might need more than you think and can go and hunt it out ready for another go. If you haven't completed a section you can go back in and edit it.
If this is your first time of doing it then do the student and supporter sections together to make sure they are linked, the following years you then can go into the supporter details direct from the student section.
If you can't link to the UCAS site - don't opt to try it another way as you then lose option to link which is bad news if this is the first application for finance and you have multiple uni applications on the go and waiting for exam results, log out and try again later.
Tick the box for bursaries, etc, you never know...
Even if you fill in all the information they ask for they may ask for proof so keep all your information in one place until finance is confirmed.
If the student is heading abroad for the summer or otherwise uncontactable get them to put an authorisation in writing before they go for you to deal with stuff in their absence, not tried this myself but it may work!