Urgent help please Student Finance blocked!!

samsara2k3

Help pleaseregarding Student Loan letter received yesterday stating my son’s support hasbeen blocked due to previous 2yrs study. He had already been granted fundingand is currently in the middle of his first semester, this letter was receivedlast night! Sorry my expalnation is rather long, am in a bit of a tiz woz!!! Trying to keep calm and not panic!

Background:Son started uni in 2010 to do Foundation course leading to degree (all at sameuni), the Foundation was completed over 2yrs and this year he has automaticallyproceeded to his degree course of 3yrs.

InitiallySF was granted and he returned as continuing student this Sept to start hisdegree. Yesterday a letter arrived saying his support is now blocked due toprevious 2yrs study and he would not receive finance in this current year. Asyou can imagine this is going to cause a massive issue as he has alreadystarted the course, received some finance already and also is committed to ayears contract on his rent. I am unable to support him due to very low income andhe has normally qualified for full support.

The letteris asking for CPR for not completing any previous academic year but he has completed his academic years! In a paniclast night I spoke to SF and the person I spoke to seemed pretty helpful, afterspeaking to her supervisor she said we need to provide confirmation that the Foundationcourse is an integral part of the degree – which it is, my son could not do thedegree without completing the Foundation first and on successful completion studentsare automatically accepted onto the corresponding degree. SF knew this as the online application has always shown a finish date yrs hence

I have donea bit of research on line and came across this legislation – if I have readthis correctly it seems this assessment and letter may be incorrect? Anyone outthere got previous experience of this please?

(5) Subjectto paragraph (6), the standard entitlement of a student to whom paragraph (2)applies is calculated as follows–-

(D + X) - PrC

where
D is the greater of 3 and the number of academic years that make up theordinary duration of the course
X is—
1 where the ordinary duration of the preliminary course (or preliminary coursesin total) was less than three years,
2 where the ordinary duration of the preliminary course (or preliminary coursesin total) was three years,
3 where the ordinary duration of the preliminary course (or preliminary coursesin total) was four years,
4 where the ordinary duration of the preliminary course (or preliminary coursesin total) was five years, and
5 where the ordinary duration of the preliminary course (or preliminary coursesin total) was six years
PrC is the number of academic years that the student spent on preliminarycourses excluding any years of repeat study for compelling personal reasons.



This is howI’m understanding things based on attached (D+X) – PrC

In our caseit would be (4+1) – 1 = 4 have I done this right?

D = 4because the full course was always going to be a minimum of 4yrs because of theFoundation.

X = 1 becausealthough the uni allow the Foundation to be taken over 2yrs and this is what myson did the above says X=1 if prelim course was less than 3yrs
Any helpful advice very much appreciated as am in total panic, havent told my son yet as he is prone to anxiety and want to know I have a possible solution or steps to a solution in place beofre I tell him what he needs to do. Thanking you in anticipation.

cabriolean

Some foundation courses are integral to the degree course and others aren't. The ones which are integral are considered Higher Education and are eligible for student finance, non-integral ones are considered Further Education. Is it possible that he completed a non-integral course due to having insufficient A-level results. Non-integral courses are often required due to A-level results being too low or instead of A-levels to prepare you for the course.
TL;DR - on the UCAS website when you go to the course page, does it show the number of years of the course as including the foundation degree, if not it isn't considered an integral part.
If it is non-integral than the course is 3 years, the foundation was taken over 2 years, and if I'm right:
3
X: 1
PrC: 2
I think X would only be for repeats of the actual course so:
D-PrC=1
I could be wrong, but if the foundation was due to not having high enough A-levels or was optional in some way, you might be out of luck.

V_Chic_Chick

He needs to contact his department and / or students union. They should have experience with this sort of thing.

Dunroamin

I hope that Taiko can answer this because it seems rather complicated.

When you do a foundation year before a degree, I know that means the course will eventually take 4 years but I don't know whether that means it's a 4 year course or not. My reason for thinking this is that the foundation year is year 0 and the other years become 1/2/3.

Just my thoughts, so may not be right.

System

Does it make a difference that the OPs son took 2 years to do a one year Foundation?

samsara2k3

Thanks for your replies so far.

I do recall his foundation year as being called year 0
The uni he is at allow 2 yrs for the foundation and because of personal issues he needed the 2yrs to complete
I've just spoken to student advice at the uni and they're getting back to me tomorrow

Unfortunately not looking good as one of you said on here although my son had to do the Foundation in order to do the degree not everybody does have to so it seems therefore it is not classed as integral even though on his SF account it is showing as course completion 2015

I was hoping this would work rather than having to go down CPR route as student advice lady suggested this is not usually successful!!

Please keep advice coming as completely out of water with this and feeling so confused with all and getting desperate. Have spent all morning looking for a potential solution!

Any advice on alternative funding if worst happens? I'm not able to get bank loan so no good suggesting that tho.

Thanks

samsara2k3

cabriolean wrote: »

Some foundation courses are integral to the degree course and others aren't. The ones which are integral are considered Higher Education and are eligible for student finance, non-integral ones are considered Further Education. Is it possible that he completed a non-integral course due to having insufficient A-level results. Non-integral courses are often required due to A-level results being too low or instead of A-levels to prepare you for the course.
TL;DR - on the UCAS website when you go to the course page, does it show the number of years of the course as including the foundation degree, if not it isn't considered an integral part.
If it is non-integral than the course is 3 years, the foundation was taken over 2 years, and if I'm right:
3
X: 1
PrC: 2
I think X would only be for repeats of the actual course so:
D-PrC=1
I could be wrong, but if the foundation was due to not having high enough A-levels or was optional in some way, you might be out of luck.

I think he basically had to repeat the year because he didn't complete enough modules in one yr
to progress onto the degree - does that make sense

dizzyrascal

Dunroamin wrote: »

I hope that Taiko can answer this because it seems rather complicated.

When you do a foundation year before a degree, I know that means the course will eventually take 4 years but I don't know whether that means it's a 4 year course or not. My reason for thinking this is that the foundation year is year 0 and the other years become 1/2/3.

Just my thoughts, so may not be right.

Yes this is my understanding too
Often an option for engineering students who don't have the right A levels.
Year 0 should be funded but it seems that he had to resit the year from the new information so that will make a difference.

amiehall

What are these "personal issues"? Can proof of these be provided to student finance because they may accept them as CPR depending on what they are.

Taiko

I'm in agreement that it sounds as if the OP should be entitled to support. However, I think I probably know what has caused this.

My guess is that the university submitted their attendance returns to SFE, and in doing so listed the course as one that appears on the SFE database as being one that didn't have the Year 0 linked to it. With that not appearing, the entitlement calculation would change to 3+1 - 2 = 2 years entitlement, leaving maintenance support only in year one, as the OP has described.

My advice would be to speak with the academic registry at the university, and ask them to liaise with SFE to correct this. Might need them to put in writing that you have progressed as intended from the Year 0 onto Year 1 of the degree. You should be entitled, even without the personal problems being evidenced, although you may want to do this anyway.

samsara2k3

Taiko wrote: »

I'm in agreement that it sounds as if the OP should be entitled to support. However, I think I probably know what has caused this.

My guess is that the university submitted their attendance returns to SFE, and in doing so listed the course as one that appears on the SFE database as being one that didn't have the Year 0 linked to it. With that not appearing, the entitlement calculation would change to 3+1 - 2 = 2 years entitlement, leaving maintenance support only in year one, as the OP has described.

My advice would be to speak with the academic registry at the university, and ask them to liaise with SFE to correct this. Might need them to put in writing that you have progressed as intended from the Year 0 onto Year 1 of the degree. You should be entitled, even without the personal problems being evidenced, although you may want to do this anyway.

Thanks Taiko - this sounds hopeful just as I was losing hope, I know in the past I've seen his Foundation course referred to as year 0 somewhere but for the life of me can't remember where I would see this (I'm not familiar with uni terms so thats why I remember thinking how odd to refer to it as yr 0). Would you be able to advise?

I've noticed your comments on some other threads and get the impression you have experience with SF issues?

I'm waiting to hear from Student Support later today but they've already told me he won't get his bursary either now if he doesn't qualify for the loan etc. So really stuffed financially now!!

Many thanks