Help with a somewhat complex Student Finance application/appeal

plycrsk

Hi all,
I’ve just today received an offer from Student finance England.
I’ve only been given the minimum maintenance grant and will have to pay for the first year’s tuition fee myself. I understand that their decision is “technically” correct, but wrote to them to put my argument forward for why I think I should still receive the funding.

To quickly outline my circumstances. I studied for 1 year at nottingham university in 2008. I then applied to a four year integrated degree at QMUL, which was a foundation year followed by a 3 year degree. I decided to switch to King's College London for the 3 year degree portion of the four years. SFE are seeing this as 'dropping out', meaning I have technically dropped out twice.

Here is my letter below:


'To whom it may concern,

I am writing to you following a request for further information clarifying my circumstances.
I will outline these below, in the hope of making it as clear as possible. I believe the confusion is around the wording of my four year course, an ‘integrated foundation degree’. This is not a foundation degree as described on your website (‘A foundation degree is a degree level qualification which combines academic study with work place learning.). Instead, the structure of the integrated foundation degree programme I enrolled onto is as follows:

Year 0 - Foundation year - Biology, Chemistry, Maths, English
Year 1-3 - A standard 3 year degree (In my case I chose Biomedical Science)
This totals 4 years, and I was originally awarded full funding for this period.

In 2013-2014, I started the integrated foundation degree at Queen Mary, University of London.
I decided during my foundation year that I wanted to study elsewhere for the remaining 3 years, after I had completed the foundation year. I completed my foundation year (year 0) and was awarded my foundation certificate in July 2014.

I decided to apply to King’s College London and accepted my place studying Biomedical Science starting in September 2014. As confirmed in the attached, my place on the programme was reliant on me having the foundation year from Queen Mary, and achieving 75% average. KCL do not run their own foundation programme, other than for international students.

I am going to be entering year 1 of the 3 year Biomedical Science degree programme at KCL, graduating in 2017.
I would have been entering year 1 of the 3 year Biomedical Science degree programme had I remained at Queen Mary, also graduating in 2017.

As you can see, there has been no change to the course I am taking, or the length of the course, apart from the institution I am completing the course with.
I am effectively transferring to another university to complete the last 3 years of my 4 year course (see letter from Dr X X confirming this).
I was required to withdraw from QMUL in order to accept my place for the remaining 3 years at KCL.

I believe my funding has been worked out as follows:
Length of course (3 years) + 1 Year – years of previous study (Nottingham university 2008 – 1 year, QMUL foundation year – 1 year) = 2 years funding

But I believe it should be worked out as follows:
Length of course (4 years) + 1 Year – years of previous study (Nottingham university 2008 – 1 year) = 4 years funding, of which I have used up the first year during 2013/14


I hope this helps to clear things up,
Please see the attached headed letters as requested, confirming information above.'

This included 3 attachments: A letter from my tutor at Queen Mary stating that the course I was moving to was the same course. A letter from KCL stating that the foundation was an integral reason for accepting me onto the course. And a letter from QM stating that I would have been moving into year 1 had I stayed. These were the items requested by SFE, but apparently not enough to get my funding.
I did phone SFE today and they said they cannot tell me what supporting evidence I need to provide for a successful appeal (I might try and phone again).

So yeah, I'm planning to appeal, and was wondering if anyone has gone through the process/has any advice for my particular situation?

Many thanks,
And sorry the post is so long!
Sam

Taiko

Sam,

Firstly, I'll say a thank you. It's nice to actually get an OP where all the relevant information is there, so people aren't going back and forth asking questions.

That said, I'm afraid that, at first glance, SFE's assessment is correct, and backed up by the relevant legislation, for which there is no workaround. That said, one thing missing from your post, or maybe I've missed it, was the reasons you left Nottingham?

SFE's assessment is correct, as the KCL course does not contain the integrated foundation year. If it had, you'd be ok for support, which I'm sure you're aware of. The letters from each university unfortunately will not make any difference in this case.

Let me know the reasons for leaving Nottingham, via PM if needbe, and I'll take a look into it for you. At the moment though, the regulations would state that you are ineligible for support.