The scrapping of student grants – what it means & how bad is it? 20 January 2016 at 6:58PM in Martin's blogs & appearances & MoneySavingExpert in the news 25 replies 5.7K views

Former_MSE_Fraser

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "The scrapping of student grants - what is means and how bad is it?." Blog.

Please click 'post reply' to discuss below.

Mrs_Arcanum

What the new Maintenance loan still does, is make overly generous assumptions about parental disposable income. With no allowance for other children already at university. If you are from a poor family they will throw money at you. Not only with a larger maintenance loan, but direct university bursaries.

My son will end up with just £100 more a year to live on than his sister. Both of whom will need significantly subsidising for a year.

missbiggles1

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

What the new Maintenance loan still does, is make overly generous assumptions about parental disposable income. With no allowance for other children already at university. If you are from a poor family they will throw money at you. Not only with a larger maintenance grant, but direct university bursaries.

My son will end up with just £100 more a year to live on than his sister. Both of whom will need significantly subsidising for a year.

Grants are being withdrawn - that's the point of the discussion.

mumps

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

What the new Maintenance loan still does, is make overly generous assumptions about parental disposable income. With no allowance for other children already at university. If you are from a poor family they will throw money at you. Not only with a larger maintenance grant, but direct university bursaries.

My son will end up with just £100 more a year to live on than his sister. Both of whom will need significantly subsidising for a year.

Two of my kids are in their 20s, when they were going to uni you got a disregard on your income if you had another dependent child so they got slightly more than if you only had one.

Mrs_Arcanum

mumps wrote: »

Two of my kids are in their 20s, when they were going to uni you got a disregard on your income if you had another dependent child so they got slightly more than if you only had one.

That does not apply with only one sibling.

mumps

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

That does not apply with only one sibling.

It did only a short time ago, one of mine graduated 18 months ago and one a year before and we got it.

missbiggles1

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

What the new Maintenance loan still does, is make overly generous assumptions about parental disposable income. With no allowance for other children already at university. If you are from a poor family they will throw money at you. Not only with a larger maintenance loan, but direct university bursaries.

My son will end up with just £100 more a year to live on than his sister. Both of whom will need significantly subsidising for a year.

Not particularly aimed at you but parents do tend to forget that they will normally have been supporting their student children when living at home so will now have spare funds to supplement their loans. Most parents don't need to supplement students' income to the tune of the £50/60/70 pw that it will have cost to keep them at home whilst studying at A level.

mumps

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Not particularly aimed at you but parents do tend to forget that they will normally have been supporting their student children when living at home so will now have spare funds to supplement their loans. Most parents don't need to supplement students' income to the tune of the £50/60/70 pw that it will have cost to keep them at home whilst studying at A level.

That is true, its not just food/pocketmoney/bus fares etc. I found the bills e.g. water, electricity, gas went down as did my petrol bill (mums taxi) and don't even think about toilet rolls.

When one of mine went off to university I immediately saved £30 a week on music lessons, no more buying reeds or music books and no more exam fees. That alone saved me a small fortune.

zagfles

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

What the new Maintenance loan still does, is make overly generous assumptions about parental disposable income. With no allowance for other children already at university. If you are from a poor family they will throw money at you. Not only with a larger maintenance loan, but direct university bursaries.

My son will end up with just £100 more a year to live on than his sister. Both of whom will need significantly subsidising for a year.

I've just been reading this document linked to by Martin's guide, can anyone make any sense of it?

http://www.practitioners.slc.co.uk/media/6258/financial-memorandum-for-201617.pdf

It says

Assessed contribution figures in tables A6, A9 & A11 are used to determine the amount of support where a 2016 cohort student has applied for loans for living costs and supplementary support or where there are two or more students in a household.
The assessed contribution for the loan for living costs applies for a 2016 cohort student where the household income exceeds £42,875.

And it shows the calculation & table for the "assessed contribution" which basically seems to be the taper to the loan for income above £42875, ignoring the taper between 25000-42875.

OK, understand that bit, I think. But how is "assessed contribution" used? What is it for?? There's no explanation of this. There's a note that it must not exceed £6210. So what happens if it does? Does it mean the loan is increased? Is this the only point of calculating the "assessed contribution"?

Or is the "assessed contribution" divided by the students in the household, so increasing each students' loan where there are 2 or more from a household on income over £42875?

Mrs_Arcanum

zagfles wrote: »

I've just been reading this document linked to by Martin's guide, can anyone make any sense of it?

http://www.practitioners.slc.co.uk/media/6258/financial-memorandum-for-201617.pdf

It says

And it shows the calculation & table for the "assessed contribution" which basically seems to be the taper to the loan for income above £42875, ignoring the taper between 25000-42875.

OK, understand that bit, I think. But how is "assessed contribution" used? What is it for?? There's no explanation of this. There's a note that it must not exceed £6210. So what happens if it does? Does it mean the loan is increased? Is this the only point of calculating the "assessed contribution"?

Or is the "assessed contribution" divided by the students in the household, so increasing each students' loan where there are 2 or more from a household on income over £42875?

Think the 'Assessed contribution' is what they assess the parents should contribute. The £6,210 is referring to long term students who started in 2009 (I think).

zagfles

Mrs_Arcanum wrote: »

Think the 'Assessed contribution' is what they assess the parents should contribute.

But how does that affect the loan when there are 2 or more students at uni? If it doesn't affect the loan, what's the point of calculating it?

The £6,210 is referring to long term students who started in 2009 (I think).

I was just looking at section A which is for new entrants in 2016.