The Student Room Group

Drop out of uni or finish the year?

I will be transferring to a different uni next year, where I will most likely restart the year as most of my choices don't allow 2nd year transfers. My two options are to either drop out now in my 2nd semester or finish the year. I was thinking of dropping out in March after I get my small bursary payment from my uni but since it will be near the end of the semester, wouldn’t it be better to just finish off my year? Apparently, I would get a certificate if I finish my first year and leave, but is this certificate actually worth getting?
Original post
by intended-ineptit
I will be transferring to a different uni next year, where I will most likely restart the year as most of my choices don't allow 2nd year transfers. My two options are to either drop out now in my 2nd semester or finish the year. I was thinking of dropping out in March after I get my small bursary payment from my uni but since it will be near the end of the semester, wouldn’t it be better to just finish off my year? Apparently, I would get a certificate if I finish my first year and leave, but is this certificate actually worth getting?


There's a few factors to consider here:

a) have you gotten any loans from the SLC (via SFE, SFNI, SFWales, SAAS)?

b) are you currently in a tenancy agreement/rental contract?

c) is the certificate in question a CertHE (i.e. a formal exit qualification) or some informal certificate or transcript (to be fair, you should get a transcript regardless)?

d) have you applied already and received any offers?

If yes for a) then bear in mind if you withdraw mid-year, depending on the timing you may need to repay some or all of the most recent loan disbursement. This is worked out pro-rata so if you were just paid your newest loan disbursement today and withdrew today, you would be expected to repay the WHOLE disbursement. If you were in the middle of the term after receiving it, you'd need to pay back half; if it was at the end of the term you received it e.g. 1 day before the next loan disbursement, you wouldn't normally need to pay any of it back. So make sure you're able to do that, which brings us to...

For b), if yes you need to look at the terms and whether there is an exit clause, as you might be on the hook for the remaining rent of the tenancy agreement no matter what, or need to find a replacement tenant (easier said than done), or you might need to pay a certain amount and give a certain length of notice under the exit clause. Obviously several of these may require you to have money which if you don't have an income/savings and lose SLC loan disbursements, you may need to consider staying simply because it would cost too much financially to leave at this point.

In terms of c) if you're applying for SLC loans I would recommend you just check if it is a CertHE or similar, whether that would impact on future funding for a course due to having a qualification already. Under the current equivalent or lower level qualification rules, as the course you'd be applying to would presumably be a bachelors, it would not be an ELQ course relative to a CertHE so I don't BELIEVE would impact things, but best to confirm!

For d) if you have already applied, if you have offers you need to check if they stipulate you complete the remainder of your academic year and/or get a certain percentage result in it. If you don't have offers yet then if you withdraw now you'd need to update UCAS and all your options to make them aware of the change in your application circumstances; it's possible this may impact what offers you may or may not get. If you were intending to apply via clearing or during a "gap year" though then it doesn't really matter.

Reply 2

Original post
by artful_lounger
There's a few factors to consider here:
a) have you gotten any loans from the SLC (via SFE, SFNI, SFWales, SAAS)?
b) are you currently in a tenancy agreement/rental contract?
c) is the certificate in question a CertHE (i.e. a formal exit qualification) or some informal certificate or transcript (to be fair, you should get a transcript regardless)?
d) have you applied already and received any offers?
If yes for a) then bear in mind if you withdraw mid-year, depending on the timing you may need to repay some or all of the most recent loan disbursement. This is worked out pro-rata so if you were just paid your newest loan disbursement today and withdrew today, you would be expected to repay the WHOLE disbursement. If you were in the middle of the term after receiving it, you'd need to pay back half; if it was at the end of the term you received it e.g. 1 day before the next loan disbursement, you wouldn't normally need to pay any of it back. So make sure you're able to do that, which brings us to...
For b), if yes you need to look at the terms and whether there is an exit clause, as you might be on the hook for the remaining rent of the tenancy agreement no matter what, or need to find a replacement tenant (easier said than done), or you might need to pay a certain amount and give a certain length of notice under the exit clause. Obviously several of these may require you to have money which if you don't have an income/savings and lose SLC loan disbursements, you may need to consider staying simply because it would cost too much financially to leave at this point.
In terms of c) if you're applying for SLC loans I would recommend you just check if it is a CertHE or similar, whether that would impact on future funding for a course due to having a qualification already. Under the current equivalent or lower level qualification rules, as the course you'd be applying to would presumably be a bachelors, it would not be an ELQ course relative to a CertHE so I don't BELIEVE would impact things, but best to confirm!
For d) if you have already applied, if you have offers you need to check if they stipulate you complete the remainder of your academic year and/or get a certain percentage result in it. If you don't have offers yet then if you withdraw now you'd need to update UCAS and all your options to make them aware of the change in your application circumstances; it's possible this may impact what offers you may or may not get. If you were intending to apply via clearing or during a "gap year" though then it doesn't really matter.

a) Yes, I've gotten both maintenance and tuiton fee loans from SFE
b) Nope, I am living at home
c) Yes I'm guessing it is the CertHE that comes with my transcript
d) Yep I have already applied. I already received 3 offers and I'm waiting on 2 more which I will most likely get as I've already achieved my A-Level grades and I meet their entry requirements.
When you say repay the loans immediately, are you talking about both maintenance and tuition fees? I've already received my 2nd payment for my maintenance loan and my 2nd tuition fees payment goes out around the 15th of February. If I drop out in March, it willl be before my final payments of both loans. So if I understand this correctly, would I have to repay a small maintenance payment?

SFE gives an extra year of funding, so I dont think it will be an issue if I restart the year. And having the CertHE certificate doesn't seem to affect my future funding.
Some of my uni offers, however, did request from me to send them a transcript of my current grades (even though I still haven't received any). Not sure why they would request it since they do not consider year 2 entries.
Original post
by intended-ineptit
a) Yes, I've gotten both maintenance and tuiton fee loans from SFE
b) Nope, I am living at home
c) Yes I'm guessing it is the CertHE that comes with my transcript
d) Yep I have already applied. I already received 3 offers and I'm waiting on 2 more which I will most likely get as I've already achieved my A-Level grades and I meet their entry requirements.
When you say repay the loans immediately, are you talking about both maintenance and tuition fees? I've already received my 2nd payment for my maintenance loan and my 2nd tuition fees payment goes out around the 15th of February. If I drop out in March, it willl be before my final payments of both loans. So if I understand this correctly, would I have to repay a small maintenance payment?

SFE gives an extra year of funding, so I dont think it will be an issue if I restart the year. And having the CertHE certificate doesn't seem to affect my future funding.
Some of my uni offers, however, did request from me to send them a transcript of my current grades (even though I still haven't received any). Not sure why they would request it since they do not consider year 2 entries.

Sorry I should have clarified, in terms of paying back loan disbursements I was referring to, it's specifically maintenance loans (the tuition fee loans are paid to the university anyway and are already taken out basically - not much you can do about it and it's unlikely you can avoid effectively having SFE pay a full year of tuition at this point regardless of when you withdraw). If you are going to withdraw I would recommend timing it to just before your third maintenance loan disbursement to minimise what maintenance loan you need to pay back, for simplicity's sake.

I am aware of the "gift year", it's more that SFE can be funny sometimes about prior qualifications. I would recommend getting confirmation that you will still get funding equal to the length of the new course if you have studied for 1 year prior and earned an exit qualification of CertHE (not saying you need to go that route but it's good to understand things). I expect it should be fine but I've known SFE to be funny when it comes to changing courses and having prior qualifications at the HE level so you just want to be certain! (speaking from personal experience :redface:)

I would also suggest checking the offers you have to see if any specify if you need to achieve certain grades/results in your current course or if you need to complete the year. If not then before withdrawing, I'd suggets contacting them to understand if they would have any issue with you withdrawing before the end of the current academic year. Even if they don't consider second year entry they may want to see that you are able to succeed on your current course before making you an offer for year 1 of their course. As otherwise they might be concerned you could be failing out of your current course, in spite of whatever your school performance was, and they may worry that you could do the same on their course.

I'm not saying that's the case for you specifically, I'm just highlighting that's a concern unis might have in general. It's not unheard of for unis to require e.g. an applicant currently at another uni to complete the year with at least e.g. 40% acverage or above (or sometimes, higher), alongside your school results. Of course not all unis or courses may care about this - this is why it's really important to engage with them early to understand their position on it before making any decisions! :smile:

If you're living at home that fortunately at least greatly simplifies things as you don't need to worry about any rental contracts at least! :biggrin:
Just to add to artful's very thorough post:

I did 1 year of a course (course A), then switched to another course (course B) starting from scratch, then dropped out after a year of that.
I got CertHEs in both.

Many years later I transferred my credits from Course B onto a similar course (course C) so I didn't have to start from scratch, I started from the second year.

The finance (SFE) was fine. I was funded for it all.

Reply 5

Original post
by intended-ineptit
I will be transferring to a different uni next year, where I will most likely restart the year as most of my choices don't allow 2nd year transfers. My two options are to either drop out now in my 2nd semester or finish the year. I was thinking of dropping out in March after I get my small bursary payment from my uni but since it will be near the end of the semester, wouldn’t it be better to just finish off my year? Apparently, I would get a certificate if I finish my first year and leave, but is this certificate actually worth getting?

Hi there,

You have already received some great advice here, but I just wanted to add on two things that I thought when I was reading your post:

In regards to the extra certificate if you finish first year, I would say it could be worth it. I have had friends in similar positions (maybe different courses though) and they have completed their first year and say the certificate was worth getting. However, this could differ depending on your course and your uni so it could be worth trying to talk to someone at your uni about this.


Following on from this, if you haven't already I would recommend talking to your personal tutor/academic advisor if you have one, or just the careers team at your uni as they will have experience with students having these types of dilemmas so they should be able to help you with what could be right for you and what the certificate after first year will get you.


The other thing I would suggest is if you get the bursary but then leave the course, will you get to keep the bursary? Some have conditions such as you finishing the year/semester so it could be worth just checking this before you rely on getting it.


I hope some of this helps,

Lucy -SHU student ambassador.

Reply 6

Thank you all for the advice and responses you've given me. I decided to just finish the year and then move on as it will make things less complicated. Hopefully everything goes well :smile:

Quick Reply

How The Student Room is moderated

To keep The Student Room safe for everyone, we moderate posts that are added to the site.