Having to pay back my ENTIRE YEAR of maintenance loan

Hi there, I'm a student who's on a study abroad program, and I've been having an utterly **** time and am looking to come home and stay home. I've already been paid both of my maintenance loan payments (requested in two) as I had to pay for accommodation very early (Back in early December so I was luckily able to get my uni to request my SFE be moved forward due to this circumstance.

Now that I've decided to leave, my Study abroad coordinator told me I would have to take a backdated leave of absence (AKA the information shared to SFE says I haven't attended uni since the 25th of September despite me spending over a semester abroad) which makes me very worried about having to pay back all of my Maintenance for the whole year (totally around 8k).

I'll be going to return to Uni for my final year in September where my usual loan is around 6.8k. Just uncertain as what to do right now as I wont be able to give back my entire second installment due to the fact i'm waiting on a refund for my second semester accommodation to get that money back. I know I can do a sort of payment plan but thats a LOT of money to pay back.

Heres direct quotes from my university contacts regarding this:

In reference to starting a leave of absence for the remainder of the year:

"The first is that you will need to request a backdated leave of absence to the start of this academic year, with a return to studies in September 2024. This is because a leave of absence must be taken for the full academic year.
It is the departmental office who have told me that the leave of absence will need to be for a year - presumably because you are not completing the year abroad, nor your normal academic year in [University]"

Not really sure what to make of it, every source seems to tell me the same thing at my uni

I read somewhere as well that I can have a good chunk of it clawed back from my next years entitlement. I have a job lined up in my uni city so am WILLING to go without maintence for next year if I really have to to avoid interest or debt, I'm really just uncertain how to approach this situation, I understand it's probably a very uncommon one

Hi there,

When are you looking to suspend the year and come back to the UK and when was it originally expected to end? Thanks, Jason