Why does SF England give more maintenance to students than SF NI?

Hi,
I'm a Yr 14 student looking to apply to universities in England in 2021. All of my choices are for universities in England, but as I was born and have lived in NI all my life I'm using SF NI to apply for finance. For reference none of the universities I'm looking to go to are in London.

After doing the maths, I've noticed SF England pays £9,203 per year in to its students in maintenance loans while SF NI (with the loan + grant combined) pays £8,315. With my circumstances I would be entitled to the highest bracket of the maintenance grant. However even with the highest brackets, it's still almost a thousand shorter than what SF England gives. I'd get this if I was choosing to stay in NI for university, since the price of living is generally lower here, but I'm not.

Why is this? I wasn't hoping to have to get a job during university, and was wanting to spend my time solely on my studies while picking up a part time job during the holidays. Will I have to get a job to support myself while my English friends don't need to? I find this really unfair.

Thanks

Hi,
I'm a Yr 14 student looking to apply to universities in England in 2021. All of my choices are for universities in England, but as I was born and have lived in NI all my life I'm using SF NI to apply for finance. For reference none of the universities I'm looking to go to are in London.

After doing the maths, I've noticed SF England pays £9,203 per year in to its students in maintenance loans while SF NI (with the loan + grant combined) pays £8,315. With my circumstances I would be entitled to the highest bracket of the maintenance grant. However even with the highest brackets, it's still almost a thousand shorter than what SF England gives. I'd get this if I was choosing to stay in NI for university, since the price of living is generally lower here, but I'm not.

Why is this? I wasn't hoping to have to get a job during university, and was wanting to spend my time solely on my studies while picking up a part time job during the holidays. Will I have to get a job to support myself while my English friends don't need to? I find this really unfair.

Thanks

I'm currently a 2nd year student from NI in England and the maximum maintenance loan and grant you can get from student finance NI is £4840 no matter what your parents income is. They don't add them together so the more maintenance grant you get (which you don't pay back) the less loan you get, it's a really stupid system. If i was english I'd get around £8,000 per year but i currently only get £4840.

I've noticed a lot of students don't have jobs here even though I live in Brighton which is incredibly expensive. My loan doesn't even nearly cover my rent so i work at least 19 hours a week on top of uni. That's before you even get started on the differences for graduate entry medicine. English student are almost fully funded whereas NI students get absolutely nothing.

Theres a table on page 11 which explains the loan/grant ratio a https://www.studentfinanceni.co.uk/media/1385/sfni_financial_support_guide_2021_o.pdf bit https://www.studentfinanceni.co.uk/media/1385/sfni_financial_support_guide_2021_o.pdf

I'm currently a 2nd year student from NI in England and the maximum maintenance loan and grant you can get from student finance NI is £4840 no matter what your parents income is. They don't add them together so the more maintenance grant you get (which you don't pay back) the less loan you get, it's a really stupid system. If i was english I'd get around £8,000 per year but i currently only get £4840.

I've noticed a lot of students don't have jobs here even though I live in Brighton which is incredibly expensive. My loan doesn't even nearly cover my rent so i work at least 19 hours a week on top of uni. That's before you even get started on the differences for graduate entry medicine. English student are almost fully funded whereas NI students get absolutely nothing.

Theres a table on page 11 which explains the loan/grant ratio a https://www.studentfinanceni.co.uk/media/1385/sfni_financial_support_guide_2021_o.pdf bit https://www.studentfinanceni.co.uk/media/1385/sfni_financial_support_guide_2021_o.pdf

You wonder should we apply through SFE or SFNI. You think they would make the rules clearer.

do you know why that is?

I've been told both. I spoke to someone on TSR actually who was a SFE representative and they told me I wouldn't be eligible to apply for SFE because I was from NI. Then I spoke to another representative from SFE on the phone yesterday and they told me the exact opposite, that I could apply because I would be living in England by the time the course started. The TSR representative who told me I couldn't apply through SFE was very brief with me though whereas the guy on the phone went to a lot of lengths to check out whether I would or not and explained it all to me very well, so I'm more inclined to believe the representative I spoke to on the phone. Maybe I'm just being overly optimistic, but it's given me a bit of hope that I can go to uni after all.

I haven't applied to any unis whatsoever in NI ie Queens or UU since I absolutely hate it here and I'm so keen to get to England, so I can't even stay here as a backup option lol

I know it’s disheartening I’ve had mixed messages around graduate funding but as far as I’m aware if you’ve moved to England for the purposes of studying you still have to apply to sfni but I’d definitely try my luck and apply to sfe and see what happens. If they reject it you will still have time to apply through sfni

Hey!
So after reading this my resolve to go to uni dipped so low I was basically contemplating not going at all. I refuse to work full time on top of completing an intensive uni course whilst simultaneously putting myself in debt just because SFNI refuse to be anything close to supportive so I was really starting to rethink my options, ie possibly moving to England and working there for a few years so I could then be entitled to eligibility. However I rang SFE and spoke to someone who told me that as long as I'll be living there on the first day of the first academic year (ie September 2021) then I would be entitled to SFE support??? I'd be moving to England in early August especially given how the A Level results day has been pushed forward to the 10th of August this year. Because I'm signed up with SFNI I need to complete a transfer thing so SFE have sent out a form for me to do that in the post. He said there should be no reason why I'm not entitled though. I really really hope he's right, he's given me a tiny glimpse of hope for the future and if it turns out not to be true then I'm going to be so heartbroken.