SLC refusing year 1 uni tuition fee loan

Liquorice_Twirls

Hi

My son stayed at school one year to 17 doing A levels but decided after lower sixth he wanted to leave. So he got a job and worked for 2 years.
Then he decide to go to FE college to do a BTEC extended diploma in sport coaching. This course takes 2 years but you can still get some kind of award if you stop after year 1.
He had to apply separately for each year for an advance learner loan to cover the tuition fees.

Now he got a place at Uni from September but has been refused a tuition fee loan for year 1 as they say he!!!8217;s already had two of the four loans he!!!8217;s allowed. The other two loans will cover years 2 and 3 of the degree.

We!!!8217;re really worried about this as £9,250 is a huge amount of money to have to find and can!!!8217;t believe if this is the case no one told us getting an advance learner loan would mean that it would near impossible to continue on to university.

Can anyone help us with some information here? Should the college have just billed one tuition fee to cover the 2 years or should SLC accept that the 2 years were effectively one course?

Or did we get it wrong and have to accept that your cant have advance learner loans and 3 years funding to degree?

Thanks in advance

Ed-1

Liquorice_Twirls wrote: »

Now he got a place at Uni from September but has been refused a tuition fee loan for year 1 as they say he!!!8217;s already had two of the four loans he!!!8217;s allowed. The other two loans will cover years 2 and 3 of the degree.

That's utter rubbish. Advanced Learner Loans have no impact whatsoever on entitlement to degree funding (unless you are in breach of an agreement for an Advanced Learner Loan such as having provided fraudulent information or not repaid when you should etc).

[Deleted User]

Are you sure it's the BETEC he's got and not a foundation degree?

Starrystarrynight1

Has your son entered this study as being previous higher education on the application (I can't remember which section of the application it is), saying he got an award? If he's entered yes, then the SLC computer system will think he has had two years previous study in higher education, and refuse a tuition fee loan for the first year.

If this BTEC study is higher education, then the result is correct. If not, and it is considered further education, he needs to amend his application (if possible) or write to SFE to confirm this and ask for his application to be amended and reassessed.

Liquorice_Twirls

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I!!!8217;ve looked everywhere and I think what it is might be that he did a BTEC level 3 extended diploma. Effectively I think year 1 is level 2 and year 3 is the extended bit with the extra credits.

I!!!8217;ve found something online that says in these cases the FE college should have adjusted the advance learner loan application before the end of year 1 to include the cost of the whole course (2 years) to make it one loan.

I!!!8217;m going to help my son get this sorted. Equally he might have put the wrong thing down on the application but I think this is less likely, cos the college made a hash of the advance learner loan bit full stop. And when we tried to sort it they said they didn!!!8217;t do many of these so weren!!!8217;t experienced doing it.

Starrystarrynight1

If it's level 3 BTEC then it's considered FE and didn't need to be entered in the 'previous study' section of the application form. Hope it's sorted for you soon.