StudentFinance Advice Needed - It's a bit complicated

MrsMinx_2

I wonder if anyone can help me.

My son was a first year student last year doing Law. He failed one of the exams at the end of the first year, and also the resit. As a result he was informed he would be classed for the next twelve months as a non-attending full time student, and could resit again in the Summer of 2014 to be allowed on to the second year of the course.

They (the University) told him that he could not get any finance during this time because he was non-attending. As a result, he decided to drop out of the course because he was unable to finance himself in the interim 12 months and could not claim any benefit (he has Aspergers) as he was classed as a full time student.

He recently did so and we received confirmation of that this week.

However, this morning, we got a letter from student finance with a new offer of finance for the year, which detailed tuition fees of £145 (the cost of a resit) and the rest was loan for personal use. I assume the university notified Student Finance of the situation.

They said on the letter he will receive first payment on confirmation of his attendance (which is not the case, as he cannot attend for this year - just show up for the resit,) but the tuition fees reflect the fact that he wont be attending.

Firstly, what the hell is going on? Secondly, is it worth me giving the University and Student Finance a call to find out if he can be re-enrolled because of this? I am interested if this has ever happened to anyone else, and what the outcome was, or if anyone who works in Student Finance and happens to frequent this board could help me to work out what exactly it all means. Thanks in advance if you have any idea.

devildog

I can't help with the specifics of your case but what I can say is that one of mine withdrew from Uni and was at home for a year considering their options. Approx 10 months after being at home Student Finance 'decided' to pay loans and grants to them, despite them never actually registering for their course (only at Uni for 4 weeks) and the fact that Student Finance were informed in writing of the withdraw the day after it happened and they acknowledged this fact to us in writing a week later!! They shouldn't have paid any money because the student didn't register.
Fortunately we picked up on this quickly although it did take a few months to sort out and the money given had to be returned/repaid.

Like I have said I don't have specific answers for you, all I would say is don't spend the money yet and write to Student Finance asking them to look into this for you.
If Taiko is around he will no doubt have the answers to what entitlement there may be for a full time student in non-attendance.

MrsMinx_2

Thank you for your reply. At this stage he hasn't received, as far as we know, any money, it says on the letter it will be paid once attendance is confirmed - which it won't be because he's withdrawn from the course. He only did that though for financial reasons. He would have sat out the year and really got to grips with the content he needed to understand better had he been able to self-fund via the loan, which the university told him wasn't possible.

He didn't want to leave the course, he did mess up in the exams, the first time because he hasn't got to grips with the subject matter properly ( he has Aspergers which causes him processing difficulties) and then the resit because he thought it would be a good plan to stay up all night revising for it, and promptly dozed off half way through the exam.

It's a right old mess, thanks for the reply though.