30% of my student loan is going to be penalised

Hello,

I am disabled, in receipt of PIP, and have just been migrated onto Universal Credit.

I applied for a doctoral loan prior to my migration, and have been approved.

I have just learned that because I am now on Universal Credit, 30% of that loan will be taken away! To clarify, it will not be removed from the loan instalments directly. It will be deducted from my UC payments. This will have the result of wiping out at least two months of UC payments every time I receive a loan instalment. It is functionally no different than if they took the 30% directly out of the loan instalments.

I understand that the reasoning behind this policy is that it is assumed by policy makers that I will use 30% of the loan to cover living costs. This is an absurd assumption. I will be using all of my loan for fees, course costs, study-related costs, etc. I will not have the luxury of also living off it.

The costs of fees, etc. will be quite high. Thus I have applied for the maximum amount of loan, £28,673.

30% is equal to £8,601

Therefore, I must now find an additional £8,601 to make up the shortfall!

Furthermore, I am given to understand that I will be expected to repay the 30% of the loan that the government penalise me, plus the interest on that £8,601, when I reach the repayment threshold.

So, they get it twice, plus interest.

Could someone from the SLC please confirm whether all of this is correct? If it is correct, is there any way to appeal this, or a way to prove that I require the loan for course-related costs, not living costs?