Student Finance Confusion, Please help!

PleaseHelpMe082015

Hi to all reading!

During 2009-2010 I studied Mental Health Nursing, I left the course due do experiencing depression and having a diagnosis of Panic Disorder. During 2012-2013 I decided to return to my studies and I applied to study Social Work, when I initially contacted Student Finance Wales I was advised that they not fund my first year due to my previous study but would fund my second and third. I sent off supporting evidence to verify the reasons for leaving my course and was awarded extra support under compelling personal reasons (unfortunately I cannot recall how many years this was, nor can i locate the documentation).

During my second year, my father fell ill and was no longer unable to work - he was diagnosed with a aortic dissection. I was concerned that SFW would not fund my repeat year, but when contacted they informed me I had two years support left, therefore I resat my year and completed. I have applied for my third year and now despite being informed that I had one year support remaining have been informed that I am not eligible to receive tuition fee funding.

Could anyone offer me some advice surrounding this? I would be so grateful

Ed-1

PleaseHelpMe082015 wrote: »

Hi to all reading!

During 2009-2010 I studied Mental Health Nursing, I left the course due do experiencing depression and having a diagnosis of Panic Disorder. During 2012-2013 I decided to return to my studies and I applied to study Social Work, when I initially contacted Student Finance Wales I was advised that they not fund my first year due to my previous study but would fund my second and third. I sent off supporting evidence to verify the reasons for leaving my course and was awarded extra support under compelling personal reasons (unfortunately I cannot recall how many years this was, nor can i locate the documentation).

During my second year, my father fell ill and was no longer unable to work - he was diagnosed with a aortic dissection. I was concerned that SFW would not fund my repeat year, but when contacted they informed me I had two years support left, therefore I resat my year and completed. I have applied for my third year and now despite being informed that I had one year support remaining have been informed that I am not eligible to receive tuition fee funding.

Could anyone offer me some advice surrounding this? I would be so grateful

So how many years of previous study did you have from Mental Health Nursing? You say you studied in 2009/10 and then left - was this in the first year or did you start a second year?

Even without compelling personal reasons you would still have full funding entitlement for every year of a new course with 1 year previous study as the formula is ordinary duration of course + 1 - number of years previous study.

So you would have been entitled to full funding for every year of the Social Work course if you only had 1 year previous study from the Mental Health Nursing course. But you say Student Finance Wales informed you that you were only entitled to funding for years 2 and 3 of the Social Work course which suggests you had 2 years of previous study when you started this course. Please clarify how many years or partial years you studied on the Mental Health Nursing course.

However, you say Student Finance Wales accepted you had compelling personal reasons for leaving the Mental Health Nursing course which means (at least) 1 year of previous study would not be taken into consideration when calculating your new entitlement.

You say you completed the first year of your Social Work course in 2012/13 and then were concerned that you would not receive funding for a repeat year. Am I right in interpreting this as you needed to repeat the first year of your Social Work course? You then repeated this year (in 2013/14?) and then studied the second year of your Social Work course (in 2014/15?) and are now applying for funding for your third and final year of your Social Work course and Student Finance Wales are saying you are only entitled to a maintenance loan for this year - have I interpreted all that correctly?

It appears as though they could have made an error. What is important is determining:

(a) how many years of previous study you had on the Mental Health Nursing course (partial years count as 1 year); and
(b) how many of those years were classed as compelling personal reasons.

If the answer to both (a) and (b) is 1 year then you should receive full funding for the length of the Social Work course + 1 extra year (for your repeated second year) so you should be entitled to a tuition fee loan for your final year in 2015/16. If this is the case then you should submit a formal appeal to Student Finance Wales explaining this situation.

If the answer to (a) is 2 years and (b) is 1 year then Student Finance Wales are correct but they have made mistakes in assessing entitlement in previous years of your Social Work course:

In this case, at the point of starting your Social Work course you had 1 year of previous study so would be entitled to full funding for the ordinary length of your Social Work course (3 years) but not tuition fee funding for any repeat years. So in this case Student Finance Wales should not have funded your repeated second year as this funding should've been applied to your final year.

This seems unlikely and it seems more likely that Student Finance Wales have, when assessing your 2015/16 application, not taken into account that 1 year of previous study on the Mental Health Nursing course was compelling personal reasons. Again, in this case, you should submit a formal appeal to Student Finance Wales.