To deliberately use public funds as an income for courses you have no intention to pay back or use to get a job forever?

[Chinsupmeloves]

I will ask the above general question first before giving my reasons afterwards.

Do you someone who has intentionally planned to take free courses while on benefits just to avoid having to look for a job? Even to the extent of a degree to use the loans as income but never intending to work to pay them off? Clearly bright enough to be accepted but calculated to do this.

Just one of those things you think about when you observe how a friend has spent their life...

Pregnant at 17, lived at home, parents raised the child and another baby age 19, the same situation. Didn't and wouldn't get a job or go to college, only benefits.

At age 27 decided she should start to do something with her life, moved out of home with latest BF, also unemployed.

Because on UC able to access free courses. Over the next few years tried a few different things like childcare course, hairdressing, beauty, therapy, dropped out of all with excuse of anxiety and depression. (She really doesn't have these, although tried to get diagnosis, rather just very lazy and entitled)

Early 30s, did an access course and then a degree which required attendance 3 hours a week but in covid times it was online. Did the bare minimum to get a pass, we were delighted and hoped this would be her inspiration to make a career.

Nope, it wasn't the course for me, doing another one, again minimal attendance and cba so failed.

Ok try again, another degree, didn't attend or do the work so another fail.

Both of these were excuse for MH issues, which she has blatantly told us she faked and viewed and planned for the grants and loans as 'her income' with no intention of ever paying back.

It's been calculated by her on UC to avoid looking for employment by studying and money in that way, also to validate to us all that she's doing something other than sleeping and watching TV, which we all know she does every day.

The SM responses of wow you're amazing, well done, are delusional.

Now she's almost 40 and hasn't had to work a single day in her life, hoping to apply for next degree...

It's made me wonder how can this be allowed? It seems while appearing to be active studying to gain employment It's not always the case.

Get funding, start a course, drop out proclaiming MH issues, do it again and again.

Oh and she has been successful in getting a diagnosis of depression. A GP has to acknowledge and send for referral, patient doesn't go to free counselling appointments because too overwhelmed, passed up to a higher level.

The bitter pill is I do actually have anxiety and depression, take medication, have worked since age 16 and built a career/paid off student loans.

Ok am done with replying now.

Simply put out the question about a situation I've observed throughout my lifetime with regard to one particular friend.

All true, no reason to fabricate, I've got far too busy a life myself but do occasionally get time to ponder and would like to know others' opinions.

When you have a lifelong friend who has become part of your family but continues to play the system it's not a case that I don't like them. More ffs stop being so lazy and entitled, which I tell her. Love you but you're being unreasonable, have some self pride, get a bloody job you're more than capable of and will do well in once you push yourself!

My brother did a lot of short term state funded courses when he was claiming benefits and thought he was too good to apply for jobs @25k,yes London, and years ago. He would actually have been very competent at many of them eg coding. It angered me. A lot. He needed to work, not prat around pretending to be a film maker. He died recently in his 50s. Not having ever achieved his dream nor having ever used anything from the state funded courses. That has to stop. NOW. As a country we cannot afford to support people who choose not to contribute. Mental health has become a cop out. My brother perhaps did have mental health issues but also chose to manipulate the system. Fuck it - i am not paying for that any more.

How do you stop people signing up to courses?
I have started (and dropped out of) loads. It is always with the best of intentions.

Very easy. Sign up to 1, great. Sign up to 2nd because you have dropped out of 1st, possibly OK. Sign up to 3rd. You pay for it AND NO STATE BENEFITS. Quite frankly I don't care what you do as a private citizen, but if you want me to pay for you then you complete the course and get trained. Mental health - couldn't give a fuck. Issues - couldn't give a fuck. Whatever - couldn't give a fuck. Etc. I was happy to pay to support people to get training. But no longer, when people take the piss. Don't complete the training, no state benefits. It needs to be that simple. An offer to improve your skills for work in exchange for support from the state. Yes of course there will always be people who cannot access the workplace but that number needs to be much smaller than current numbers.

You don’t have the full story here because in order for her not to have a work seeking criteria under her UC she must be telling them she’s in education. They will then deduct her student loan off her UC total. She will still be entitled to some UC due to having children but a large percentage will be deductible due to student loan.

As others said the government will only fund one completed degree unless it’s in something like healthcare (and if she wasn’t going in she’d be booted off the course) so how is she getting funding to do all of these degrees? If this is what she’s telling you then it’s what she would like you to believe.

Yes a friend of mine had started a degree at 50 and doesn’t really have an idea what she’s going to do with it. She interestingly started it the same month her youngest no longer qualified for child benefit and now of course doesn’t have to look for work. She has never worked since leaving school and lives her life on her husbands poorly paid wages and benefits. I don’t know how she lives knowing he works nights in a miserable
job to pay what little he gets whilst she does nothing to help.
the other part of that is that she’ll never ever pay her loans back in full, even if she does work after uni she doesn’t have enough years to pay that back so the first thirty years have been a free life as a the life after uni. I am all for training but it should be for an aim at this age like nursing not just just some random degree to stop looking for work, I also believe that if you’ve not worked just like this person you should be doing two years work first to demonstrate you ca commit to a degree, this is what we ask of teenagers and a levels why are adults any different? That way you have shown your work ethic and commitment to a course.
I’m an about to start my degree, alongside my full time job. I appreciate it’ll be employer funded but I won’t be enjoying long days of study or whatever she does as ill be managing a demanding job at the same time.

I can believe it because I had one on my accountancy course at college as an adult. She messed around in the lessons and took pride in telling us she’d done most of the courses at the college because she didn’t have to pay for it. Not sure why so many posters are determined to believe these types of people don’t actually exist.

I think she's having you on. If she got her first degree she wouldn't have revieved funding for multiple subsequent degrees. Perhaps she has a private income.

I'm not sure "friend" is the right word choice to use.

Courses are different to degrees. So you can get 4 years of degree funding but these courses you just have to qualify don’t you.
I a degree and a masters and during covid I did some courses because I was unemployed. They are level 3 and degrees are level 4 I think?
colleges are full of people doing courses as long as they make the requirement. I don’t think you get grants for them but would mean you don’t have to work.

I’ve put that you are being unreasonable because how can you have this person as a friend? This degree (no pun intended!) of cynical exploitation would drive me crazy. However my eldest having dropped out of uni was barely offered help to find a job/someone to advise on CV let along having degrees paid for so I would love to know more about how she managed to secure several lots of degree fees paid?

If she’s already taken the loan out for one degree then there’s only a select few healthcare degrees you can get a second loan for and they have mandatory in-person attendance and placements in hospitals/ social care. If she has had two extra years of funding and the bursaries etc then I really can’t see her getting any more. Second degree funding is generally the limit and as I said only for topics the government needs more of (physios, dietetics, children’s MH nurses etc).

As others have said this post doesn’t really add up. You don’t get multiple degrees funded. And if she’s getting any sort of benefit for her mental health they’ll use evidence of her attending courses and completing a degree as a reason why she is able to cope enough to not qualify.

She won’t have been able to infinitely complete courses and do nothing. Unless she’s literally gone from course to course to course (unlikely) or has more children you haven’t mentioned she’ll have been expected to prove she was looking for a job full time.

End the ‘friendship’ OP and focus on other things, this isn’t worth the headspace.

I think her life sounds miserable, insecure, stressful and bloody pointless tbh.

I also think that you are completely within your rights to be frustrated and angry about her behaviour and to draw back from the relationship.

She sounds like a waste of space.

You are correct @Octavia64 they do usually only fund one degree unless the second qualification is an allied health professional course.

You sound overly invested and overly unhealthy intetested in this person @Chinsupmeloves. I think you maybe don’t know the full facts i.e. she maybe started the degree got so far into it and then had valid reasons why she couldn’t quite finish it.

Mainly though she is living off her DPs. Not much anyone can do about that.

Well done you for not being like her. It doesn’t sound as if she asks you for anything, so perhaps slowly distance yourself if it’s causing you distress.

I think you have to finish it - otherwise you can keep going. You can also
get post grad funding

You should sob her in for the housing fraud. I would. I can’t stand thieves.

Because college courses are different to degrees. You can get bonus years for extenuated circumstances but OP said her friend has completed a degree already. She won’t get permission to be funded for a second and definitely not a third one unless it’s in something like healthcare and she would be booted off that pronto when she stopped going in because placements are intense from the start.

The post doesn’t add up and it looks like OPs friend is pulling her leg. I’m thinking OP is asking a lot of questions about why this woman isn’t working and she has a health condition and she doesn’t want to tell her she’s claiming disability or something, because you cannot do what OP is saying unless she is paying the degree tuition herself.

You get 5 years, so two extra years to finish your course if you have good reason why such as health reasons. I got them as I switched courses and then I got a bonus year because I was unwell and wanted to resit my final year as a performed poorly in the exams. My friend also got them as she switched courses and had to resit. She then failed her second year twice and wasn’t allowed onto her third year as they wouldn’t pay for it.

OP said her friend completed a degree though so this wouldn’t apply to her.

You get post graduate funding but that literally only covers your course cost.So her friend wouldn’t see any money from this at all unless she spent it on herself and not the university, but she’d be instantly booted off the course for not paying the tuition. They still deduct that from your UC too.

Her life sounds horrendous. No way would I want her existence.

I think you need to take a step back and worry about your own life!(MYOB) in other words! Shes on Adult and its up to her

What a great friend you are!