I think I've been mis-sold a student loan

Hello,

I undertook an Access to H.E. in Biomedical Science at Morley College September 2016 - April 2017 and after passing I have begun a degree and masters in Osteopathy at U.C.O.

When I enrolled I sought council from various sources on my funding options and I was assured that if I took out an Advance Learners Loan to cover the Access course fees, these wouldn't need to be repaid if I progressed to university.

This quote is from the Morley website:
"The Advanced Learner Loan will not be repayable if you go on to university and successfully achieve your degree. Once your loan is approved, the amount borrowed will be paid directly to Morley College."

I have now received a letter from the Student Loans Company requesting that I start paying off the loan I took out to fund the Access course and after calling their helpline they inform me I must start to pay it off and once I graduate from university, any outstanding balance will be wiped off.

This is certainly not how the structure was explained to be by Morley via the website, whilst speaking with my course tutors and when I spoke with student guidance tutors, and I believe this loan has been mis-sold. It wasn't 100% necessary for me to do this course to go to university, so I was very careful to check with Morley about the terms of the loan and I asked them directly a number of times if it would be wiped off if I progressed to uni and they categorically stated it would be.

I also called the SLC before enrolling and was assured I wouldn't need to pay back the loan if I progressed to university. When I called SLC today to take up a complaint I asked for an email address and after being put on hold 3 times I was told there was no email address. After a simple internet search, I found an email address, I don't understand why the help line employee wasn't more forthcoming?

Having spent some time today looking back over other sources, such as the gov.uk website and the Access to H.E. website, all the information is very ambiguous and nowhere does it very clearly state that repayments will start regardless of whether you go to uni, but if you do, any outstanding balance will be wiped off.

Had I know this, I would have most likely self funded the course as that would have been cheaper. I also might have considered a shorter degree, as the one I have embarked upon is 5 years long. I am also looking into getting a mortgage and now that I have this loan to repay that will negatively affect my mortgage eligibility.

I also let go of some of my employment so I could focus on my future studies, but now I will need to reassess my finances. This will affect all areas of my life and has serious ramifications.

Self funding the course with Morley would have been almost 3 times cheaper than taking the loan and I only took out the loan as I believed the course would end up being essentially free if I progressed to university. I notice they now no longer appear to have a self funding option on their website.

The quality of the course was terrible, there were non stop problems and I ended up hiring a private tutor to see me through my exams. I was going to take action at the end of the course, to gain a refund, but I was happy to get to university and just wanted to put it behind me.

This is a quote from the gov.uk website, which contradicts itself from one sentence to the next and it doesn't clarify anywhere what an "outstanding balance" is. Any balance not paid is an outstanding balance, therefore the entire balance is an outstanding balance. It's not clear at all and paired with the advice from Morley College, it's easy to see how someone might not understand the reality of the loan repayment terms:

"Student Finance England will ‘write off’ any outstanding Advanced Learner Loan balances you owe for an Access to HE course once you complete a higher education course. This means you don’t have to repay it."


I have also noticed during my research today that there appear to be a number of scandals surrounding student loans and I have contacted my fellow students to see whether they were given the same advice and if they felt they have been mis-sold this loan as well.

I am looking to either get a refund of the Morley College course on the gourds that the course delivered was not the course I was sold, owing to the lack of quality, or to follow the route of the loan being mis-sold, but perhaps you have other suggestions.