What is the most the poorest student pays in fees and the minimum grant + bursary?

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

Couldn't you have chosen a more cuddly username for your first post, Terry - anyone might now think aspects of this thread were considered off message by HMG or some other agency :eek:

NervousHomeowner

TurnUpForTheBooks wrote: »

I have not said £6,000 a year is the minimum grant including scholarship, but indeed I have suggested that if it (or more exactly £6,354) is good for one poor student it is good as a minimum for all and I make no apology for suggesting that students currently expecting to receive less than that make that very point to their own university, especially those expecting to receive just the basic maximum SFE grant of £3,354.

I just quoted your post where you said that students should request the '£6,000 extra help as I have seen as a minimum.' I don't know how else I'm meant to interpret that? I also don't know what you expect students stating such an amount to their university will do. If you mean make a complaint then yes, by all means, students should write to their MPs and their universities about the need for a rise in maintenance grants and scholarships but I don't know what you think saying this to the funding department is going to do.

You clearly are one that believes that student deadlines are to be adhered to. Yes I can go with that, and good for you if you are talking about arriving on time at lectures and other appointments, and submitting course assignments! However, with regard to applications for scholarships and bursaries do please put your logical head on. Yes clearly it would be useful to apply early with all the right info. But just suppose the main breadwinner in a student household dies or just ups and leaves or simply just makes a mistake and doesn't provide their income data to SFE before the notional 31 August deadline you might be talking about. What happens when the data is submitted late as original data or as changed data? The worst that happens is that the grants and loan instalments may get paid late or you get told No as the first answer. Do you always accept No as the first answer, or maybe just sometimes? Yes it 'depends'. Everything depends on something. Sometimes your own resourcefulness or presentation of a case, perhaps?

Please read my previous post more thoroughly. I said nothing about a deadline with SFE, we were purely discussing the scholarships you mentioned, which as I have previously explained, are not controlled by SFE but by the individual university. For changes to the maintenance grant and loan provided through SFE, students can of course apply for alterations to be made should their situation change. Again, I said that in my previous post.

Scholarships are applied for through the university that students are attending and different universities offer different scholarships depending on the funding they have available. Universities can impose whatever deadlines they want to these and although of course you can still apply after the deadline, as funding for scholarships is limited, students who apply late are less likely to be approved because of money already having been allocated to students who applied on time.

With regards to a change of circumstances after the student has started the academic year (e.g death of a parent) in which instance a student might need more financial help, some universities offer a hardship fund that students can apply to for extra funding to help them in their hour of need. Again, this is entirely separate to the SFE maintenance grant and University funded scholarships.

But for the most deserving cases (or perhaps all cases at some universities) what happens to the communication of late application data by SFE to the university? It might be further delayed but when it arrives, it is not going to be ignored now is it, especially if it is a newly verified maximum SFE grant student? Of course not.

I don't even understand what you're trying to get at here. Like I said, my previous comments about late application have nothing to do with student finance and are about scholarships.

In the past, it has been common for students to receive funding late due to the high volume of loans being processed at the start of the academic year. In this instance, the loans for tuition are usually dealt with by SF and the university and nothing happens to the students. For maintenance, if the loans and grants are late, most students rely on their overdraft (Lots of banks offer student accounts with free overdrafts for this reason), others will rely on parents and others usually go to the university who help to sort things out whether that's by offering money from a Hardship Fund or by talking to landlords/companies to explain the situation. A lot of companies are actually quite understanding if you call and explain that your funding hasn't yet arrived.

Bursaries/scholarships are cashback. Nothing more. A marketing gimmick. Nothing less. Sponsored by government. First year especially because of NSP.Can you tell us what is promised about

• RPI + 3% (that's at least two potential variables by the way not one), and about
• the 9% and about
• the £21,000, and about
• what happens if you drop out, and about
• at what stage the loans might be securitized and sold to privateers

just to name a few flimsy aspects of the so called contracts? All it takes is a current or future government to have their hand forced. Unheard of? Er ... sorry ... a quick scan of the recent world economic situation might suggest for the UK it is eventually going to be more likely than not I would say.

Now I just have no idea what you're going on about. With regards to the items in your list, all of this info is listed on the direct gov. website.

- For students who started their course after 1st September 2012, the interest charged on the loan depends on more factors. While studying, the interest will be charged at RPI plus 3%. If a student leaves their course or graduates before April 2016, it is charged at RPI. If a student leaves or graduates after April 2016, the interest then becomes based on their income. For those earning £21,000 or less, interest will be charged at RPI. For those earning £21,000 - £41,000 it will be charged at RPI and up to 3% more depending on how much you earn within that bracket. For those earning over £41,000 it will be charged at RPI plus 3%.

- Not even sure what you're on about with 9%.

- Students who started their course after 1st September 2012 only begin to repay their loans if they are earning over £21,000.

- If you drop out, you are held to the same standards as those who have graduated. So if you started after September 2012 and you drop out, you'll only begin to repay your loan once you start earning over £21,000.

- How am I to know what would happen to the loans if they are eventually sold off when it hasn't even happened yet? At the minute, the talk is that the interest on loans taken out between 1998 - 2012 would be charged at a higher interest rate but that hasn't happened yet and hasn't been approved yet either so I don't know what more you expect me to say on it really. Yes the interest rate can change but that could also potentially happen if interest rates go up. It's kind of the same risk as taking on any other loan and doesn't actually affect the amount students pay back each month so won't have any real catastrophic effect on those with student loan debts.

And now I'm going to throw my towel in because I just cannot be bothered anymore You posted a thread asking for information from students from low income families about the funding they receive, and I answered. For some reason, you seem to think that despite currently being in the very position of a student from a low income family, you know more than me about the funding I receive.

For the record, I'm wholly in favour of providing more comprehensive funding to all students and especially to students from LIF but I'm not going to argue with someone so condescending and utterly patronising about their crazy speculations on the interest rates of student loans. Especially when your little show of lacktivism involves sitting on the internet scare mongering with no actual solutions or practical help for those who have to take out their loans just to get the job they want.

TurnUpForTheBooks_2

That was quite some towel NHO

Condescending and utterly patronising? Have you tried a mirror?

You are a student who has not yet graduated in an unknown subject. I am a graduate from long ago in a numerate discipline. I take an interest in the world economic climate. I know a number of students from low income families starting right now - that's how I have been able to quote more than one example accurately.

RPI is an unknown variable. It is already a government officially discredited index. Will be interesting to see how long it survives. It has already been ditched as part of the annual excalator in many pension schemes in favour of CPI. That second aspect (whether RPI will survive) introduces a potentially unknown extra variable. Then there is the additional factor of +3% or any other amount now or in later years to RPI which is itself something that a future government could change - up or down. Or maybe they wouldn't need to if RPI goes through the roof - an 'orrible % increase in an index plus 3% is still an 'orrible number if you then arbitrarily call it the loan interest rate!
The 9% is the amount of your gross income above £21,000 that will be your annual repayment liability. There is likewise no guarantee that it will remain 9%.
The £21,000 if not increased during any period of significant inflation (which may occur if QE has to stop as economists and central bankers seem to be saying right now viz 'tapering') will have the effect of increasing your repayments as a proportion of your future total salary in real money terms. Can a government or PPP be trusted to increase the threshold in line with inflation?

As for HMG selling off loans to privateers I am sure I read it has already happened with one or two tranches of earlier years' loans. You are surely not saying you don't believe it can happen?

Many scholarships from universities especially in Year 1 are dependent upon SFE verification of low income status. QED any open deadline for SFE assessment/re-assessment is an open deadline at the university "until the money runs out" as I have put it. I read the article you kindly linked to two posts ago (Thanks). The anomaly that is the huge variation in university support (grants/bursaries/scholarships/cashback call it what you will) for low income students is laid bare in that article. It is blamed on the difference between "wealthy" universities and some other kinds. That's not good enough. It won't do. Students finding themselves discriminated against by this anomaly should exert pressure on their university to release comparable cash back to levels of cashback more freely given by "wealthy" universities until it does, else the university is masquerading as a educational establishment worthy of the name or worthy of approval to charge anything like the full £9,000 tuition fee.

As I said, and you nearly said, it is rather unfortunate that your middle of the road viewpoint clashes with my fast lane activism. I can only wish you luck and hope sincerely that you are more right than me in your case.

Otherwise I do say to all undergraduates taking loans from SFE and especially those receiving modest cashback, your total loan liability at the end may well be out of sight and just feel like a tax if it works as you hope, but it'll make your eyes water more than any tax if it starts behaving like a loan debt which is the real deal you are signing for. You are surely not signing for the chance of a loan write off in 30 years .... or are you? .... until then it remains a liability.

Reduce that liability as much as you can by extracting as much government/uni cashback as you can. These grants/bursaries/scholarships/cashback are not taxpayers' money and they are not universities' money - they are just some of the money you have been coerced into borrowing being given back to you in fits and starts if you are lucky.

I even asked about those £9,000 invoices in the examples where fee waivers are given as part of scholarships - will they be revised I asked? I was told no the original invoices will stand. To me that indicates that the waivers may be being accounted in some nefarious way and I still do not know at what point the waivers affect the calculation of interest on the tuition fee loan e.g. beginning of first term, second term, an even spread or some other deal!

Poppy9

TerryMI5 wrote: »

From what I know (except London) most accommodation is roughly around the £100 mark with the prices going up more due to personal preference (e.g on suite etc)
But what I don't get is how students can live on £100 with going out drinking every single night!

A I posted earlier on this thread

DD off to one of those uni's. Her accommodation is £115 a week for a single room, no basin, shared kitchen and bathroom. No living room but there is a common room for 200+ Her email allocating accommodation was obviously a template as it apologised if it had offered accommodation substantially over budget but the cheaper accommodation was over subscribed.

A lot of my friends children are off to uni this year and they are all paying over £100 per week, some as much as £150 per week! AS the email stated cheaper accommodation is over subscribed so if you want halls you have to cough up what you are allocated or look for private accommodation.