wrong student loan

please help, my sister is applying for uni and just got her maintenance loan through for uni and it’s the minimum amount. it’s £6000 and the calculators told us it should be £10000+, due to my total household income being £35000. has this happened to anyone else? how do we fix it? please help, we’re in bits

I swear the minimum amount is £3000

I'd recommend contacting the maintenance loaning body, and informing them of your issue. They'll either give you a perfectly legal, solid reason as to why she can't have a higher maintenance loan, or will pay her the full amount. It could've just been a glitch in their system.

From reading stuff on here the notifications seem to come in 2 parts - you get an acceptance for the minimum as everyone (who qualifies for a loan at all) gets that and then you get a second notification once they have assessed the income details supplied. They really out to sort out the wording to make it clear as this question comes up all the time

we’re trying theyre just not helping, there is no reason. she’s in bits, she won’t be able to go if she doesn’t get a higher loan.

Wdym they're not helping? Are they not responding to your emails of confusion? Have you tried ringing them?

are you sure? my loan didn’t come through like that, they put it all in one letter. but thankyou.

It is relatively common - it's much quicker for them to approve the basic loan than to do the income assessment, so they approve the first bit when they can while still working on the additional bit. If your family have provided all the details correctly and your sister has definitely just been awarded the minimum then it seems likely they're still assessing the income.

It is relatively common - it's much quicker for them to approve the basic loan than to do the income assessment, so they approve the first bit when they can while still working on the additional bit. If your family have provided all the details correctly and your sister has definitely just been awarded the minimum then it seems likely they're still assessing the income.

The irony behind this is that just approving the first bit is actually slowing them down. If they approved it all together, then it would mean fewer calls and queries they have to deal withabout this, meaning more time to process more applications all at once.

Definitely, even just making it clear on the "loan approved" page whether or not they've considered the income information yet would save a lot of stress and time on both sides

it really would, she’s beside herself and we’re all worried out of our minds. still yet to confirm on the phone that this is the case.

Student finance stress is never fun At the end of the day though, it doesn't matter what's happened so far, if you meet the eligibility criteria for the higher loan and have sufficient evidence to prove it then they'd struggle to argue otherwise. It may just be a waiting game to see if the larger amount gets cleared in the next few weeks.

If you can't get a clear answer on the phone, it'd be worth getting your sister to message them on Facebook or Twitter. They usually reply within a day or so there, and can access her account with her permission there to see what's going on. It feels less urgent than contacting them on the phone, but it's still usually quite quick and gives you a written record of what has been said (always good to have a record rather than just vague memories of what's been said in phone calls!).

Glad you got an answer. It is based on household income so if she is part of the household (regardless of her not being related to you) then it must be included

not for london