Student finance maxed out

I’ve just gotten a £3500 bill from my uni that sfe won’t cover.
The Harper&Keele vet school have a transfer program where you can do first year of a related course (animal-y or science-y, they have a set list of acceptable ones) at either Harper Adams university or Keele university. So I studied for a year doing vet bioscience at harper Adams. Luckily I did well enough that I got one of the transfer spots they said aside for each year’s intake at the vet school.
I started first year of the Veterinary medicine course in September 2022, doing well in the assignments and exams throughout the year. When the end of year exams came round in summer 2023, I failed one of them. The pass mark is 50% (rather than your usual 40%) and I just missed it. Did the resit exam a couple of months later and just missed 50 again. So I was told I’d have to retake that module.
However, because the module was one of the bigger ones, the uni said it would be impossible to retake alongside second year of the course. I had to take a whole year to just study that one module. And I’d be allowed to move on to second year of vet med in September 2024.
I have just been informed by SFE that they won’t cover the tuition fees for the module repeat year (despite a phone call earlier in the year where I was told otherwise). Their rule is that you can have tuition fees for one course length (so 5 years for vet med), plus one extra year. This gives me a total of 6 years worth of tuition fees covered by SFE. This rule is in place so that people can switch courses after a year when they discover their original course choice wasn’t what they wanted. Or for those doing a foundation year.
Now I’ve been told that sorry, but said extra year has already been used up because you did that vet bio year, you’ll be receiving a bill for £3500 to pay for your module repeat year out of pocket.
Is there anything I can do?

Hi there,
Have you previously studied prior to this course or hold a qualification? If not, then we do also have what's called CPR: Compelling Personal Reasons which students can apply for if they've had to repeat a year due to reasons outwith their control. I've enclosed further information here: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/going-back-to-uni-or-repeating-a-year. Thanks, Jason

If you mean were there were any mental health issues or family disasters or any extenuating circumstances? Then no, just a case of failing an exam.
I had called sfe at the start of the year to update my course details, and during this call I asked if the pro rata fees for my year were going to be covered, and I was told yes. I was told to print, fill out, and post to sfe a C01 Change of Circumstances Form For Full-Time Students. Which I did, along with a letter explaining all of my years of study up to that point, and I again asked if this maximum of 6yrs tuition fee loan applied to me in this letter. I didn’t receive any response.
It’s only now, 8 months later, that it’s been revealed that it actually won’t be covered.