Tuition fees 10 December 2017 at 8:04PM in Student MoneySaving 3 replies 1.4K views

MillieHill

Hi
My son started University in September but very quickly realizsed it is not for him and left after a few weeks. He's had tuition fees paid, first installment of maintenance loan and is in a 11 month tenancy in a house (which he is no longer living in!). I know we have to accept the housing costs and it is right that he will have to re-pay the maintenance loan as he has used it, but i am wondering if anyone knows if/how we can get the tuition fee debt either refunded to the student loan company or written off? Overall 5 weeks at Uni has cost him £3k in fees, plus near enough the same in maintenance loan and the same again in rent. A very costly decision so if we can do anything to reduce this it would be good.

agrinnall

The university will have published rules on what fee refunds they will make (if any - unlikely after having have 5 weeks of tuition I would have thought) which will be available on their website. As an example, this is what the university where I work says for refunds of a 3 semester course:

• If you withdraw during your first semester you will be charged 37.5% of the annual fee for the course
• If you withdraw during your second semester you will be charged 75% of the annual fee for the course.
• If you withdraw during your third semester you will be charged 100% of the annual fee for the course

silvercar

Overall 5 weeks at Uni has cost him £3k in fees, plus near enough the same in maintenance loan and the same again in rent. A very costly decision so if we can do anything to reduce this it would be good.

Any student loan received will be repaid as effectively a graduate tax. Once he starts earning, once his salary reaches a certain point (~21k from memory) he will repay 9% of that income as a salary deduction.

His problem may be that some of the maintenance loan may be demanded back now as he has not been in uni that long.

Ed-1

silvercar wrote: »

Any student loan received will be repaid as effectively a graduate tax. Once he starts earning, once his salary reaches a certain point (~21k from memory) he will repay 9% of that income as a salary deduction.

His problem may be that some of the maintenance loan may be demanded back now as he has not been in uni that long.

Threshold rising to £25k for post-2012 loans in April 2018 and annually by earnings after that.

But yes - the loan entitlement will be reassessed and there are different options available for SLC to choose to recoup any overpayment:

http://www.practitioners.slc.co.uk/media/1522/change-of-circumstances-guidance-chapter.pdf