Student loan repayment request query

Donnah2708

our daughter has just finished her last year of uni. At the beginning of the last financial year my husband was made redundant. He estimated that his income would be £1000 less than he received and I estimated that mine would be about £1000 less too.
the total that we did receive as a household was £25,003. The finance company has now been in touch and said that our daughter has to repay back around £800 as our estimate was inaccurate. My question is that even though we underestimated our income, we were literally £3 over the £25000 income limit. Surely our daughter doesn’t have to pay back the £800 based on a £3 excess of the lower income bracket.

silvercar

I don’t have time to do further research on this right now, but some questions:

Are you in England? Or a different home nation with slightly different rules?

I know the rules are that you can apply for a current year income assessment if your income is expected to be at least 15% than the correct assessment year. Does the fact that the incomes were higher than anticipated mean that the assessment should have been based on the previous year rather than current year? And this means that the assessment is for £800 less?

Do some special payments kick in if income is at the max loan level?

Is there something else also at play eg a shorter term than expected, change in length of course etc?

silvercar

A student finance application for the 2025/26 academic year (September 2025 to August 2026) you will usually need to provide information from the 2023/24 tax year (6 April 2023 to 5 April 2024).



You will qualify for a current year income assessment for the 2025 to 2026 academic year if your expected household income is both: 

• at least 15% lower for the full current tax year compared to the year you gave details for
• £58,349 or less for the full current tax year

The current tax year when you would have applied was 6 April 2025 to 5 April 2026.

You will have given details for 6 April 2023 to 5 April 2024. If it turns out that your income for April 2025 to April 2026 wasn’t 15% less than it was for April 2025 to 2026, then the assessment should have been made on earning in the 23-24 tax year. So it may not be the £3 over the limit that triggered the reassessment, but that the income didn’t drop by 15%.

Smudgeismydog

We opted for current year assessment, and were asked to confirm our figures. My daughter was advised she had to pay back @£100 once they completed their assessment.