OU previous study, student loans and university.

[mama72]

Hi,

This is my first post and I am hoping someone may be able to help me with a query I have regarding previous study.

My son has just turned 17 and has 120 OU points. He plans on doing another 60 point course this autumn and will be applying this year for university entry in 2014. He has had a few people mention to him that he won't be eligible for a student loan as he has previously studied with the OU. Does anyone know if this is correct? Any help you could give me on this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Depends how you/he have funded his OU study - if he's taken a student loan for it, that eats into his loan-years available, if you've just paid for it, he should be fine to get a student loan.

That's my understanding of the situation, anyway! Ask the OU?

If he is currently on transitional arrangements and had his study paid for under the previous arrangement, it should not affect any loan. The new unified loans system did not apply until September 2012 - from that point, OU students can get loans on the same basis as FT students and therefore it affects the ability to get a loan for future study.

Thanks for the replies. He is currently on transitional arrangements and so hopefully he will be able to get a student loan. We certainly couldn't afford to pay for him to go and so he's been a bit panicked by these comments.

My DS has just filled in the online form (he's going to uni in Sept this year, having completed 210 OU points). The money previously from the SLC for OU was a grant, not a loan, and they don't ask about grants.

This is great news! He's had some really positive responses when he's been asking the uni's if they will accept OU points, so fingers crossed his plans work out.