student finance is this true or boll***s???

[jollyoldstnickschick]

Single Mum(unemployed) told me that as she is a single mum her ds gets a years free tuition at the 9k a year price and doesnt have to pay hardly anything back.

Its not true ....is it?

same mum also said her ds doesnt have to have good gcses or A levels he can choose where he goes??

no way?

I think that I have heard of this scheme. It is run by the University of Madeitup. There is a link here.

lmao that link just made my day ....she is convinced its true and was arguing the toss with the labour canvassers when they knocked door to door ........`

Your neighbour may have been thinking of this...

www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/jan/31/tuition-waiver-scheme-too-complex

ohh looks like shes right then .

If this were true surely there would be outrage. Maintenance allowances, maybe, but handing someone £9K or even up to £27K to study whatever they liked wherever they liked... outrageous.

So someone wanting to study physics at, say, Manchester but whose parents earn £40K - they get nowt. Another student (e.g. OP's friend's dd) might choose to study Media Studies at University of Bedfordshire (here's looking at you, Les Ebdon) and gets it freemans. I can't understand the thinking behind such a notion.

it looks to be true -but its not fair is it?.

I feel so much for those earning 40k - many of my friends. They are totally shafted by this government which ever way you look at it.

It may depend on the uni, as they each offer slightly different scholarships/bursaries now. At mine, if you are on FSM, you can either choose a £3000 cash bursary or £4500 towards your accommodation or a reduction on your tuition fees. So it may be true of somewhere, if not a blanket rule.

It's true that no UK first degree student has to pay anything up front. The student pays it back once they are earning £21k and its written off after 30 years.

That's tuition fees BTW.

The article also suggests that the student has to be 'clever', not with only average marks, so your friend's not quite correct. I suppose it's like a government-funded scholarship of sorts?

True sneeze but the issue is therefore if no one has to pay it back until after they have finished the degree why should certain students get a reduction when they all come out with the same degree at the end and the same ability to get a job but yet one student has to pay less than another? (NB maintenance is a different issue I am only talking about tuition fees)

In what sense goinggetstough? Most universities offer living costs bursaries which would help students from poorer background. It would be mad to take a fee waiver instead in this case.

The theory is that students from more disadvantaged backgrounds are, well, just that and that it extends to employment. They're unlikely to have parents in professional occupations, so less family experience of applying for and getting those types of jobs and less likely to have contacts in professional areas.

However, it would indeed be mad to choose a fee waiver over a maintenance bursary because, like goinggetstough said, you won't be paying back until you have a job, you'll pay it back in the same proportion as everyone else, so you'd just pay it off a bit quicker, which won't really make much difference and it's mostly being peddled to families who have little experience of university and so think it sounds a much better deal than it is, when actually £9000 cash over three years could be much better.