Bit of a crisis situation with uni, please help!

[RedJeans]

Hi, writing about a situation with my DP/BF (feels weird calling him a partner!) and his university.

He's had ongoing problems with Student Finance England messing up his applications for funding (completely their fault, very complicated situation) which has resulted in them not paying his tuition fees to the university this year. He received a letter yesterday saying that his most recent re-application for funding has been rejected so called them up this morning to discuss and they informed him that he'd been expelled from university for not paying the fees!

Then called up the university who confirmed this and said that he needs to email them and appeal the decision.

Can anyone let me know what the outcome of this is likely to be and if its likely that he won't be let back into uni? Or if anyone else has been in this situation? Seems ridiculous to me as none of it is his fault but we're extremely worried and stressed as you can imagine!

TIA

[RedJeans]

bump

[alreadytaken]

if it is truly the fault of Student Finance and he's done everything he should and done it *when" he should then he'll probably win an appeal. Has he spoken to his tutor and showed them proof that the problems are not of his making AND that he has taken every step to sort them out?

If his parents are not part of the problem has he gone to them for help?

[RedJeans]

Part of the problem with communication is that we're at home now and uni is five hours away with term finished so people aren't very available to talk to directly. Just having to email people at the moment but it's all a bit slow and I'm panicky!! Hopefully uni will be understanding as I know lots of people who have had problems with student finance (although not on this scale)

Should have evidence of correspondence with them but another problem is that twice they have lost forms that's he's sent in...

He's not particularly keen on asking parents for help but if worst comes to worst than I think they would. Thanks for replying!

[creamteas]

Almost every uni I have worked in will give telephone appointments over the vacations. Ask to be called.

You are also likely to have two potential sources of support. The university should have a support service, but the student union should also have an advice centre/union reps that can help.

[alreadytaken]

tuition fees would normally have been paid last year so he has had a lot of time to seek advice on this from his tutor before. Therefore he needs to be very active now in contacting people. If necessary he travels the 5 hours back to the university to sort it out.

Although he may have some excuse for not keeping a copy of forms the first time when he knew forms had been lost he should have had the sense to copy anything else he sent in. Certificates of posting are useful to prove you have sent post, he should have got one the second time. Did he do that?

I'm not suggesting he ask his parents for financial help but for advice and support on how to present his case to the university/ sort out Student Finance. The Student Union may have greater experience. He still needs to sort out the student finance problem - if he was eligible for finance and they pay his fees over to the university it would obviously help his appeal.

[RedJeans]

Thank you or the feedback and advice.

I think he has spoken on the phone to someone at the university once so far and yet have just directed him to some sort of email appeal system, I think I will encourage him to keep phoning and asking to speak to someone to keep the process rolling.

The reason it has all been left so late is that student finance (on top of not sending his maintainence grant on time) also paid the university the old £3000 fees instead of the new £9000 fees and so the error didn't come to light until recently when the final instalment was due and subsequently didn't get paid. The university then assumed that he hadnt paid them personally instead of student finance and cut him off without any prior warning (which seems very odd to me, but he says he didn't get an email or anything).

Not much common sense so no copies made he's not as organised as I would like about this sort of thing!!

[RedJeans]

Certainly some of the fault does lie with him not keeping on top of re-applying etc. but the original and subsequent errors by the company shouldn't mean that he loses his place at uni. Would be devastated if that were the case, although hoping the uni are fair and allow him back on. Will have to see how they reply to the email tomorrow!

[alreadytaken]

How much can you trust what he says? Universities would not generally expel a student by informing student finance and not the student. I'd expect there to have been several attempts to contact the student before it got this far and if he'd provided a reasonable explanation for the delay he'd have been given a deadline to sort it out. Has he changed e-mail and not told the university?

If they paid 3k and he is entitled to have 9k paid then he should be able to get student finance to pay the rest over quickly. Once the university has its fees and confirmation from student finance that it was their mistake they'll be a lot happier.

[RedJeans]

I can trust him completely. He had one phone call a few months ago to say that there was a delay and he referred them to SF, was told that would be sufficient and then no contact until now. No email change as it should have been sent to his university email, but no contact and it has since been cut off due to him being excluded.

Good news today though, uni have emailed to say that he is no longer on the exclusion list just the pre-exclusion list until the funds go through. He's applied to student finance for the fourth time now so hopefully it will all go to plan!

Thanks for the help everyone.

[UptheChimney]

Coming in late, but glad it got sorted RedJeans

Can I second the recommendations of help available via your Student Union? I was spending a fair bit of time last month helping one of my tutees to sort out a series of problems started by the AWFUL Student Loans company. I could only deal with advocating for him to have resits in August, but I suggested that he sought help from the Welfare Officer of the Student Union.

I checked back with him last week about whether that was helpful advice, and indeed, yes, they are really helping re Student Loans Company.