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Owe rent, not at uni but still getting loan

To cut a long story short, due to health problems I had to come home to NI after being at uni in Scotland. I successfully completed 1st year and came home during October of second year. I'm tied into a house until June and I'm not attending Uni, however haven't officially dropped out despite meetings with advisors. I have been working a part time job whilst at home but this doesn't cover my rent that I owe in Scotland, I haven't been able to get anyone to take my place either. Worried that if student finance find out I haven't been at Uni I'm gonna be hit big time, so far the loans have been the only way I can keep my head above water. Anyone any advice on what I can do?

Reply 1

Jackieox

Have you got your last installment of the loan? If your uni tell Student finance you won''t get the loan anymore but they're fully within their rights to demand back an overpayment if they find out

Reply 2

IdiotFeatures

It entirely depends upon what your University decides to inform SFNI/SAAS of - are you funded by SFNI I assume? In which case I'd imagine your funding works very similarly to SFE.

Firstly, your maintenance funding is based upon days in attendance. Your tuition fees are based upon being in attendance that term and are split into 3 termly payments. As these are paid directly by SFNI this will make little difference to you except in terms of your overall debt at the end of your studies.

If you were to suspend your studies now, before returning for your next term and before recieving your April maintenance loan/grant instalment then it is unlikely you'd receive an overpayment notice for any of your January maintenance loan, however you may receive a small overpayment for any maintenance grant you received as this usually stretches over he vacation period.

However, suspending due to health reasons, as long as this is clearly conveyed by your University in a 'Change of Circumstances' application, should entitle you to funding for an additional 60 days of "attendance" and therefore this may mean no overpayment and may allow you some of your April instalment.

Again, it is entirely dependant upon the date the University tells SFNI you suspended from. The further back they date this, the more likely you are to incur an overpayment and have to repay funding.

To ensure you don't incur the third lot of tuition fees for term 3 with your university you would have to find out when the cut off date was for this (usually the last day of term 2). Again you should discuss this with your school and the university's tuition fees team.

In terms of paying your rent, if you feel that by not receiving your April instalment of maintenance from SFNI would leave you in a position of financial hardship then you can apply to their Discretionary Payments Team and if you are deemed to have a need then they may grant you additional funding for the remainder of the year - however, this is discretionary so there is no guarantee.

If you have suspended part way through a year and have to complete an element of repeat study next year then this will also impact your entitlement to funding. You should check this with SFNI but in most instances you will be able to receive the length of your course (typically 3 years) plus one gift year (in case you aren't not able to progress as normal). You will have to use your gift year next year (unless you've already had to use it) and as long as you "progress as normal" after this point you will be able to receive funding. If you need to suspend or repeat in any other years or have any previous study then you'd need to either self fund the next year of study's tuition fees or apply for a year of entitlement to be disregarded due to Compelling Personal Reasons - this is again a discretionary decision at the hands of Student Finance.

I hope this helps, best of luck with all of this and I hope you feel better soon and are able to proceed with your studies!