Eligibility for funding for a PGCE course

Dear Student Finance Team,

Hope all is well.

I have a bit of misalignment in my payment and course schedules and would like to query if I am eligible for enrolling in a PGCE course this September or if I should wait until the following year.

My situation is the following: I started my degree in January 2020 and I am due to complete my final exams this July, which means that I will get my results by mid-August. But because I started my degree in January my payment schedule is a bit behind and my last tuition fee payment is scheduled for October, despite the course being complete by the end of August.

The university that provides me with a PGCE position had confimed that I can enroll with them with just my provisional degree certificate as I will only get my original certificate after the final Tuition Fee Loan payment is made i.e. in mid-October, which is a month after the start of the PGCE course. The aforementioned payment is still for the 2022/2023 academic year.

My query is - am I eligible for enrolling in the PGCE course and for receiving student loans for it, or the delay in my last payment will cause an issue and I should reapply for the course next year?

Just to reiterate - the PGCE training course starts in September this year and for it, I will be applying for the funding for the 2023/2024 academic year. My last tuition fee payment for my undergraduate for 2022/2023 is scheduled for the 18th of October 2023 (my last maintenance payment for 2022/2023 was made in April and I no longer expect any further payments).

Hope the above makes sense and please let me know if you need any further details.

Thank you in advance for your help and I look forward to hearing from you .

Kind regards,
Emona

Hi Emona,

You can't have two applications overlapping. This means if your current course doesn't officially end till after your new course starts, then you won't be eligible for finance for the new course.

Thanks,
Claire

Hi Claire,

Thank you so much for the response - I really appreciate it! This is what I thought the trouble is there is a misalignment between the student finance schedule and the university schedule as based on my uni letter my course ends in July and I am liable for council tax after that meaning I am no longer a student. Also all my maintenance payments have cleared out, but the last tuition fee payment is scheduled for October. Will it make any difference if I send a letter from uni with the official course end date to Student Finance England? I am just checking, if there is no option to address this I will withdraw my application and just won't go into teaching as I can't wait one year idle.

Thank you in advance for your help and enjoy the rest of the week.

Kind regards,
Emona

Hi there, I would advise to speak with your university and if your course end date is incorrect this would need to be amended for the team to review. Thanks, Karen

Hi Karen, thank you so much for your response. I want to confirm that I had my application reviewed by over 10 members of staff from the SFE team over the last 2 months and my payment schedule is correct. I have been reassured that that is indeed the only option for January starters.

As of today, I had withdrawn my application for the PFCE course and will not be presently applying for it as I also just found out that there will be a new funding plan starting this year - plan 5, which will last for 40 years, and I am not yet sure I would like to sign up fo something like this. If things change on my side, I may reapply next year, but presently there are a few reasons that put me off of the course, the main being the new plan's terms, so I will not be proceeding with my application.

Thank you again for your response and have a great weekend .

Kind regards,
Emona