[JGP]

Hi .. my daughter has lived with my wife and I in France for the past nine years .. we are retired and have low income .. she has applied to attend university in England and Scotland .. I understand that she can apply for a fees loan through SFE .. can she also apply for a Maintenace Loan and Grant .. she has not lived in the UK during the past three years. Many thanks from a confused parent.

[Shani]

As you are permanently in France (not because of work etc) then your daughter would be classed as an EU student.

If she applies to SAAS because she goes to a uni in Scotland she will get free tuition. Beyond this there is no maintenance support.

If she applies to SFE because she goes to a uni in England she will get a tuition fee loan to cover her tuition fees but no maintenance support.

To receive full maintenance support she would need to have been living in the UK for 3 years prior to the start of her course.

[JGP]

Many thanks Shani for confirming what I hoped wasn't true.

[nimrod100]

Hi,
We are in the same position but in Germany, here there is a possible solution and that is to apply to the BAFÖG, german equivalent of the SFE, try checking if France has the same system. The Bafög will help students who are living in Germany but going overseas for their education.
On the other hand if you have lived in France this long would it not make sense for your daughter to apply there as it is much cheaper.

[spanishguy]

Sorry but this isn't correct. Please phone the EU team at student finance - they were very helpful to me when I applied last year and will explain the position. UK nationals whose parents have exercised the right to roam in the EU are treated as home students and are entitled to funding. She will need to return to live in UK by 1 Sept rather than waiting for her course to start.

It has been repeated on here lots of times - basically, if you are a UK national who has exercised a right of residence in the EEA or Switzerland, you are a home student. You get everything every home student gets, including maintenance loans. It has been such since 2008.
Hope this helps.

[Shani]

(Original post by spanishguy)
Sorry but this isn't correct. Please phone the EU team at student finance - they were very helpful to me when I applied last year and will explain the position. UK nationals whose parents have exercised the right to roam in the EU are treated as home students and are entitled to funding. She will need to return to live in UK by 1 Sept rather than waiting for her course to start.

It has been repeated on here lots of times - basically, if you are a UK national who has exercised a right of residence in the EEA or Switzerland, you are a home student. You get everything every home student gets, including maintenance loans. It has been such since 2008.
Hope this helps.

As far as I am aware, the right to roam pertains to residence re: working. Not moving to another country permanently, not for work.

Feel free to prove otherwise, but that is the way I have always understood it.

[spanishguy]

I was in exactly the same position as JGP's daughter and was assessed as being a home student - the only difference was I couldn't apply online as the system can't cope with non standard replies to some questions.

[Shani]

I've done some more digging, and it seems I may have read something different regarding the EEA right to roam thing.

Category 6: Settled status and exercised a right of residence in the European Economic Area and Switzerland

To qualify for Student Support under this category, you must:
1.be settled in the UK;


AND 2.be ordinarily resident in the UK on the day on which the first term of the first academic year of your course actually begins;


AND 3.have been ordinarily resident in England and settled in the UK immediately before leaving the UK and exercising a right of residence (this means that, before leaving the UK, you must be either a UK national, or the family member of a UK national and you have settled status, or a person with the right of permanent residence, and you or your family member has been a worker or self-employed person, or a student or self-sufficient person somewhere in the European Economic Area or Switzerland, other than the UK);


AND 4.you have been ordinarily resident in the European Economic Area or Switzerland for the three-year period before the first day of the first academic year of your course;


AND 5.if, during that three-year period, you were ordinarily resident in the European Economic Area or Switzerland mainly in order to receive full-time education, you must have been ordinarily resident in the European Economic Area and/or Switzerland immediately before that three-year period (this does include time spent there in full-time education).

This is the category that entitles you to full Student Support if you are a British citizen or the family member of a British citizen (as long as you have settled status yourself before you leave the UK with your British family member) if you have been living outside the UK but elsewhere in the EEA and/or Switzerland.

http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/student/inf...igrant_workers

[JGP]

Thank you to everyone who has provided information to this thread. It has given me hope, but I am still not confident that my daughter will get help. I will call the SFE on monday and try to discuss CATEGORY 6 qualification and let you all know the outcome.

[Shani]

(Original post by JGP)
Thank you to everyone who has provided information to this thread. It has given me hope, but I am still not confident that my daughter will get help. I will call the SFE on monday and try to discuss CATEGORY 6 qualification and let you all know the outcome.

If you get no joy with the normal SFE lot, try the EU team

[JGP]

Spoke to a very nice lady today at SFE and after she had to leave me hanging on for 5 minutes whilst she clarified everything with someone else .. confirmed that my daughter is eligible for both fee and maintence support .. we will apply now and see whether we have any obstacles .. and I will update this stream as we proceed.

[spanishguy]

Glad you got there in the end. I'm sure you'll be fine - as I said the EU team are used to this issue and are usually very helpful. Unless things are different this year you will have to fill all the forms out by hand as the on line app will throw you out as soon as you say you aren't living in the UK for the last 3 years. I put a covering note on my paper application explaining my position and I never had any further queries about my application. Your daughter will need to apply for an NI number and have a UK bank account before her finance can be paid. I had to wait until I was in the UK to do both of these things.