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Student Finance and Year Abroad..VERY confused

lottie1992

Ok, I'm seriously stressed over this. I was under the impression that over your year abroad you got the same maintenance loan as you get when you're at university, i.e £4000 ish a year. However, I've had this sprung upon me today, AFTER having booked non-refundable flights to Latin America to do an unpaid internship, that if you're going to a 'non-erasmus' country you get about half of the maintenance loan that you're supposed to get.

My case gets EVEN MORE complicated because i'm going on an Erasmus study placement for my second half of the year. So i should be getting half of the full amount PLUS erasmus grant while i'm in italy, and £1150 in latin america. i find this ludicrous, because for starters the first 'instalment' (i.e. £575 measly pounds) gets paid to me at the end of August, which is supposed to last me for FOUR MONTHS. just to illustrate quite how ridiculous this is:

575/5 months = £115 a MONTH, which equals £28 a week. WHAT USE IS THIS TO ANYONE???

I will then be given the second instalment of £575 at the beginning of January, conveniently 2 weeks before I leave. Total and utter ****.

I just cannot understand what goes through the idiot who runs student finance's mind. WHY do we get next to no loan just because we're not in Europe WHEN WE HAVE TO PAY THE DAMN THING BACK ANYWAY????? I'm so angry, and I phoned the 'advisors' who couldn't have been less helpful if they'd tried. My university are writing a query to them, and they helpfully have told them that they'll get back to them in 15 days. because it REALLY takes that long to write a letter of reply. My parents are just out of the bracket where I get loads of extra grants and loans and god knows what else, but the thing is that just because they don't have a low income doesn't mean that they just have disposable money ready to give me, they have a lot of other things to pay for and frankly, CANNOT afford to basically entirely fund my stay in Latin America. I'm going to get a job in the summer but I still don't think that it's fair of them at all not to give me the loan that i'm entitled to, and had BANKED on when booking the flights.

I hate how student finance just EXPECT your parents to hand money over to you just because they earn a bit over £50,000. It makes me so angry because we have so little disposable income and yet can get no help whatsoever. If they don't change this pathetic excuse of a loan in Latin America i'm writing a letter of complaint, i'm absolutely DISGUSTED.

In this rant, I was basically wondering whether anyone else has had the same trouble/no trouble at all on their year abroad doing this half non-erasmus half erasmus thing, and whether there is any help that someone can get if their parents can't give them money, regardless of their income.

Sorry for this massive rant, they just make me so angry sometimes. I've spent hours on the phone tonight to no avail whatsoever and it's making me so stressed i cant concentrate on my exams.

Reply 1

iPhone

Every placement year student, no matter where it's based will get the same amount of funding. Doesn't matter whether your living out, living at one, going to another country, the amount will be the same, but the only exception is unpaid placements. Are you sure that you put down voluntary / unpaid placement on your application?

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