Student finance - financial information

[MrsWhites]

My DD has completed her student finance application but was advised by her tutor to apply for the maximum loan amount even though our household income is quite a way over the maximum threshold.

We have now been sent emails to provide financial information - it says we can provide the information or decline, given that she will get the minimum maintenance loan either way would it be easier all around to decline to give the information do you think?

I don’t want to appear like we aren’t supporting her but equally don’t see the point in providing information for someone to spend time assessing when we know she will only get the minimum amount.

Yes I agree with you
no point in going through the process if you’re sure about what she’s entitled to

I wouldn’t consider it unsupportive to not want to share personal financial information when you know your child is only going to get the minimum loan anyway.

School tutors aren’t always right. Even the control freak at my son’s school says they are on their own with student finance (other than the webinar he arranged at the end of y12 for which he resent the recording link recently 😂).

Thank you for your replies. I think we’ll just decline to give information in this instance then.

Hi, @MrsWhites are you in England or elsewhere? We're in Wales, haven't started the application yet, but in a similar financial position to you.
From what I've read so far on the studentwales website, it seems like you have to apply for the maintenance loan element. I would rather not supply info so I'm wondering if we will be able to decline to provide the info later on in the process (as you have)? Does anyone know please?

@Fringeundecided in Wales students get the whole amount and some may be eligible for part of it to be a grant so it is worth supplying the info. Have a read up as it is different to England.

We are in England. As it happens my post was a bit unnecessary as I apparently clicked too far and wasn’t able to go back and choose to decline giving financial information so I’ve had to supply it now. I suppose my husband could decline but since I’ve provided mine now it seems easier for him to just complete it too.

It seems like the situation is different in Wales so I’m not much help to you really - sorry!

Bit late now, but you could have just not started the process at all (rather than start and - at least intend to - decline). DD decided to tick the Apply for maximum available box out of curiosity, even though we'd worked out that like her older sibling she was only entitled to the minimum. I contacted sfe and was told that doing nothing would result, after a couple of weeks, in DD being assessed for the minimum anyway, then woukd get any adjustment due if and when we ever did submit our details.

@MarchingFrogs i wish I’d have done that now. My own fault for not waiting for responses on this thread before I started the process!

I'm confused with the whole thing. I've been told my son has to apply for a loan even though we don't want him to have one so that the uni fees can be paid through the portal. I think the interest fees are extortionate and even paying the minimum 9% back over 30k will not make a dent while it's accruing 7% interest each year. The whole system needs to change quick!! Anyone else know about applying but not requiring the loan??

@Lakelandmumofthree do you mean you don’t want to apply for any loan, tuition or maintenance? Are you going to pay for his tuition each term? I’m not sure how you go about this but you can choose to not apply for the maintenance part I think.

Yes, I expect to pay for everything, I think the interest fees are extortionate. I've registered for an account but that's all, I might need to ring them up and make sure I don't need to do anything else.

Hard to believe there isn’t a way you can pay directly without getting a loan.

Regarding the interest rate though, if they are starting this academic year the interest rate won’t be set until September and should RPI year to March 2024 so 4.3%.

Yes it follows RPI but plus 3%!!!

Plan 5 loans - so student loans taken out from 2023 onwards - the interest rate is RPI with no uplift. They will have to start paying back earlier and it will take longer for the loan to be wipes out.

RPI in March 2023 was 13.5% - but the interest rate was capped as inflation was so high.

RPI in March 2024 was 4.3% - so that is the rate that will most probably be set in September.

Of course you can pay fees without a loan - how do you think overseas students do so! Just get in touch with the fees office and set up a payment plan.

@titchy it is @Lakelandmumofthree who seems to have been told she needs to set up a loan to pay fees not me.

Lakeland with my twins we had almost to fight against the school so as not to apply and the form was confusing. My children have no loans even for fees and it is definitely NOT compulsory to apply. My final query on this at the time was would they then be assessed at foreign student fee rates eg something like £25k a year not £9k if we applied for no loan but that was definitely not the case.

This is from the University of Birmingham website. Iirc the setup at Bristol, where I paid DS1's fees for his MSc, was similar.

If your DS isn't going to need a student loan at all, there was no need for him to apply for one. And certainly no need for him to give your contact details, or for you to set up an account, if your household income is such that he would only be eligible for the tuition fee loan and the minimum maintenance loan anyway.

It is his loan, though, not yours, so he could decide to take out the maintenance loan anyway, if he fancied some extra spending money (or money to invest - some do, apparently) with no danger of any strings being attached other than the requirement to pay the money back once his earnings go over the threshold (I'm sure you're not going to impose conditions apart from that your DS actually turns up at university and does his best? but sadly, some parents do use the financial aspect as a means of coercion).

That being said, since it is his loan, he is the one who needs to get in touch with sfe and inform them that he no longer wishes to take out the loan(s), otherwise his application will be processed automatically.

When I said on the application we didn't want a loan it said your application has been deleted so I'm all good there. He's saved over £10k since birth due to birthdays, little jobs etc so he is going with some money in his pocket so to speak so I don't think he'd need another loan. Thanks for clarifying.

No need to apply for the maximum loan if you know they won't get it. I guess from the tutor's point of view, they don't know your income, so they can only give generic advice, and a default of "apply for it and see if you get it" is not so stupid. I would imagine there are some families who assume incorrectly that they won't get anything.