Levitate Student: SFE & DWP, left hand doesn't know what right hand's doing....

In academic year 2016/17 Maintenance Grants to help with living costs were removed from the package of funding support available to new full-time HE students in England.

There were two distinct versions of the grant for living costs which were assessed in the same way and were paid at the same level, these were 

the Maintenance Grant 
the Special Support Grant

In 2015/16 a students household income had to be £42,620 to be eligible for a payment of the minimum grant of £50 with the maximum grant of £3,387 being paid to students where the household income was assessed as £25,000 or below.

So why two grants for maintenance.......?

The Maintenance Grant would count as income in the calculation of any means-tested Welfare Benefits. As the vast majority of full-time undergraduates are not eligible for Welfare Benefits whilst they study this was not really an issue.

Special Support Grant would not count as income against means-tested Welfare Benefits. So it was paid instead of Maintenance Grant to those students (such as lone parents, student couples with children, disabled students) who could evidence an underlying entitlement to certain means-tested Welfare Benefits.  

The student Maintenance Loan does count as income (albeit with some disregards) against means-tested Welfare Benefits.

In 2016/17 the Maintenance Grant and Special Support Grant were removed from the funding package and replaced by Maintenance Loan only. For those new students with an underlying or actual entitlement to means-tested Welfare Benefits their award comprised a Loan for living costs with a Maintenance element and a Special Support element. 

For students from the lowest income households this meant a maximum Maintenance Loan of £8,935 with a Maintenance element of  £5,466 and a Special Support element of £3,469.

The idea being that the Special Support element would be disregarded as income by the Department for Work and Pensions and other benefit agencies when calculating means-tested Welfare Benefits. 


This all makes sense except when it comes to practice......

Some students it seems, such as lone parents and disabled students, are facing problems when applying to local authorities and other benefit agencies for means-tested benefits such as Housing Benefit to which they are entitled.

These agencies do not seem to have been updated adequately about the student income changes or with guidance on how to apply the disregarded Special Support element of the Maintenance Loan.

In addition Student Finance England Student Support Notification Letters do not break down the Maintenance Loan into individual elements, making it tricky for the benefit agencies to establish how much of the Maintenance Loan award is the Special Support element.  

It seems unacceptable that the most vulnerable students, who rely on Welfare Benefits to cover their basic living costs should be impacted so adversely. These challenges do nothing to help student retention problems or to widen participation from under represented groups. No doubt university advisers and hardship funds have felt the pressure to support their students through this academic year when they have been left with reduced income and rent shortfalls due to these problems.

Why was communication about the impact of these changes so poor? Why is it taking so long to remedy?

Levitate Student: Tuition Fee Debate - No Fee Fuss

If nothing were to change with the current Higher Education Funding system apart from it being Tuition Fee free what might change in your student loan repayment?

Use the Money Saving Expert Student Finance Calculator - read all the information about built in assumptions.

Pick a realistic salary above the £21K repayment threshold 

Play with the amounts including and annual tuition fee loan and leaving it out while keeping the living cost loan in place

For example we used 

£22,000 starting graduate salary 
a 3 year course
an annual Maintenance Loan of £8,000
£9,250 annual tuition fee

which using the default built in assumptions gave a repayment of

£22,560 over the 30 years of continuous employment. 

Taking the fee loan out of the calculation made no difference, nor did it when we increased the starting salary to £25,000. 

While calculators can only give an indication of repayment, they do help to give a better understanding of the long term repayment against the borrowing. 


Play with the figures yourself and remember that no tuition fee does not necessarily mean less repayment back to the public purse if the system of living cost loans remains unchanged.

If the system remains the same then the main beneficiaries of no tuition fees would be those who don't require a living cost loan (arguably the better off). 

Levitate Student: How have HE courses been Funded - Tuition Fee Funding Funnel

Follow the link to our  England Tuition Fee Funnel presentation for a simplified explanation of the changes over time and the source of Higher Education Undergraduate Tuition Fee Funding in England.

It may take a few seconds to fully load.

Loose Change - UK Money Blogger Guest Post

Here is a LINK to part 2 of our UK Money Bloggers Loose Change rant on some of the quirks of student money rules.....

Benefit rules this time...... Grr!!

Levitate Student: Be wise - Income MAXIMISE

Did you read our Bankrupt of Mum and Dad article? Still makes our eyes water....!!

But what if you don't have a financial contribution to your budget from the bank of mum, dad, partner or other family/friends while you are in higher education?

What might your budget look like?

There are lots of example budgets out there and "what the average student spends" guides - Google away! There are lots of examples.

So we are not going to regurgitate that information in our own version - not least because there is no such thing as an average student. Each student is an individual, with there own backgrounds, values, drivers and pressures.

The example budgets do serve as excellent guides, though they do tend to be based on the circumstances of traditional, single, school or college leaving students. This covers a large proportion of students but by no means all situations of the diverse students in higher education

No matter your circumstance you are likely to have to supplement any statutory student income to some extent.

MAXIMISE your income by

Making sure you are receiving all the student finance you are entitled to 

Asking if you are entitled to any welfare benefits - this is more likely if you are a lone parent, a student couple with children, a disabled student or a part-time student. See Any Benefit?

eXploring if you could be entitled to a bursary or other financial help from your university or college

Interest free borrowing via an overdraft offered with a student bank account

Making an application to the university/college Hardship Fund 

Identifying all your income and expenditure - understand and manage your budget 

Searching for  help from a charity or trust fund  e.g. www.familyaction.org.uk  www.turn2us.org.uk 

Employment, work part-time alongside your studies - check you uni for Jobshop/Careers

                                                                                                                       Be wise - MAXIMISE - seek advice if you are struggling 

Guest Post - Loose Change UK Money Bloggers

Thanks you UK Money Bloggers for the invitation to write a post for your

Loose Change blog

I focused on a few of the most annoying exceptions to the finance and benefit rules that students often face . It turned into quite a rant so the editor and wonderful founder of Debt Camel allowed it to be a rant of two halves. So here is a link to Part 1 

Students - too often the exception that proves the rule

Levitate Student: Our Services & Limited Special Offer

  

Levitate Student MONEY offers independent, impartial, information and guidance for students studying in Higher Education in the UK 

Our aim is to guide and help students understand their money options and to make their own informed choices.

We want students to be empowered consumers and to understand their money RIGHTS, RESPONSIBILITIES and know who to REFER to if they are not sure.

These are our

Our INDEPENDENCE is important to us because sadly sometimes students need help with money problems involving their University, the Welfare Benefit or Student Finance agencies.

We are not part of the government, Student Finance agencies, or directly linked to any Universities or Colleges. We have over 12 years experience in delivering expert student money guidance.

Knowing where to look for the right answers is sometimes not as easy as it sounds. So we are here to help with some useful.....

  Our Services

Presentations & Talks

For Staff, students at organisations who work with prospective HE students

Student funding entitlement guidance

Student funding application guidance

Repaying the student loans

What to do if refused funding or how to appeal a decision

Tips for considering budgeting, accommodation options, bank accounts, jobs

Financial Capability workshops 

For students, students & parents, including activities, games & talks

Funding entitlement

Budgeting and Money Management

Common money issues faced by students

Know where to look for help

One to Ones

Student Money guidance for parents/students based on individual need. 

If complex then follow up work to assist with next steps.  

Limited Offer for 2017– Student & Parent Money Workshop delivered for just   £500 plus trainer travel expenses.

Send your enquiries to us at levitatestudent@gmail.com

Salad days - guest video

Since there is a salad crisis playing out at the moment thought we would share a video from a friend of Levitate Student - Blogger Gouranga Love!

Abha can knock up a mean and healthy salad and also grows some of her own veg to go into the salads on her allotment. However you don't need to dig and delve to grow your own. She grows salad sprouting seeds on her window sills and re-cycles her Romaine Lettuce, Celery, Chinese Leaves, Pak Choi etc from their salad hearts.

Watch her Salad Days video to see her re-cycled celery and how easy she makes preparing a healthy salad look.

GOURANGA: Gouranga - Salad days: Let me show you how to make a perfect healthy salad with fresh organic and home grown ingredients

Levitate Student: Bank(rupt) of Mum & Dad

I am a parent of two young people born two and a half years apart. That seemed like fairly shrewd family planning at the time. Its seem a common enough set-up looking around, the standard 2 point...whatever kids with about two years recovery time between them. The fact is that back then my spouse and I had not projected our minds forward to the impact that decision would have in their university years.

Our Number One Child started university in September 2013 on a four year degree course and our Number Two Child started in September 2015 on a three year degree. So as a consequence they over-lapped their uni studies by two years. 

I am going to try to list out what it has cost to support our students aspirations to go to university. Something we have done gladly I must say, in spite if the challenges and financial struggles it has brought us.

What I won't include are the general costs we would have incurred anyway such as food and lodging when they come home, taxi-ing costs (including back & forth to uni as we would no doubt have done similar driving about to somewhere anyway) holidays we have paid for, Christmas presents, birthday and other gifts etc.

I will start with their student income though.....

Student finance assessment

Our students could not get income assessed student finance as our joint household income took us just over the threshold that allowed anymore than the basic funding. As a consequence both kids were entitled to the tuition fee loan which is not dependent on household income and the non-income assessed maintenance loan.

In 2016/17 this loan is £3,038

They didn't tick any boxes for any extra help from the universities such as bursaries. However one did need to apply for disabled students allowance which helped with some specialist equipment.

Planning a budget

We would recommend that parents and students sit down and do this together. It's a challenge to know what are appropriate or affordable expenditures. So we agreed to set a a rough budget but discuss their needs and our own money pressures on-going and tweak as needed.

We agreed to send a monthly amount by standing order of £150 to each child (even over the summer). 

So for Child One that's £7,400 over the 4 year course

 & for Child Two that's £5,800 over the 3 year course

The kids have been fairly modest with their spending and have earned some money through working when they could. 

On average they spent somewhere between £200 & £250 per month on out-goings such as food, bills, course costs, travel, socialising (rent excluded).

Looking around the university towns

We visited the potential university towns, some just on the Open Days, but others we made special trips to see. We made a holiday of it on one occasion since the universities of choice were quite away from home. 

We've easily spent over a £1000 on travelling to the university towns and paying for hotel accommodation.

Filling the bottom drawer

It's easy to get carried away in this department. We bought storage boxes, bedding (you don't really want all your home bedding to go with them) towels, cushions, basic crockery, cutlery. pans, tupperware. We had to buy them both a set of suitcases. We even bought small pieces of supplementary furniture such as drawer units, side tables and even collapsible wardrobe from IKEA for example. 

Books were a very expensive outlay and to be honest I am not sure how much use they were. Even though the university sends a reading/purchase list we would say hang fire until the student has a better idea what is really important themselves.

I would say £1000 would probably cover the books and bottom drawer costs for them both.

Stocking the cupboards

We have tended to help them with a "big shop" at the start of every new term, when we take them back after a break. This is to help them on their way, perhaps we are being over generous to pick up the tab but hey ho. 

So £1,500 should account for the big shop for each of them over the years.

Accommodation costs

This really hurts - I mean really!! The cost of accommodation has definitely been the toughest pressure. Paying for weeks where they are not even living in the accommodation is especially aggrieving.

Also there were hassle and concerns over signing as guarantors on their rental contracts. 

Child One lived in hall in first year and went for the catered option - cost £6,082

In second year they lived in private rented but had saved enough from student income and our monthly contribution to pay their own rent. Cost was £90 per week for 52 weeks with bills on top.

Year three coincided with their siblings first year so once again Child One had to pay their own rent. Which was £75 per week for 52 weeks plus bills.

For year four they returned to halls at an annual cost of £4,995, un-catered this time, once again we parents paid.

Child Two lived in private rented in year one with utility bills included and we paid it - cost £4,200.

Their second year coincided with their siblings final year so while we paid for Child One's halls, Child Two picked up the cost their own rent £105 per week with no bills included.

Their final year we will pay again  - the cost for accommodation (no bills) is £4,920

The kids have paid their own deposits and administration fees as these are often taken at the time of finding the new place.

Summary accommodation cost  to bank of Mum and Dad

               Child One        Child Two        Cost to
              Annual Rent   Annual Rent   Mum & Dad

Year 1      6,082                 -                     6,082                

Year 2      4,680                 -

Year 3      3,900              4,200                4,200                     

Year 4      4,995              5,460                4,995                                        

Year 5          -                  4,920                4,920

Total                                                      £20,197

So from the Bank(rupt) of Mum & Dad)

                     Monthly Budget                 £13,200

 Looking at University Towns                 £ 1,000

      Filling the bottom drawer                 £ 1,000

         Stocking the cupboards                 £ 1,500

           Accommodation Costs                 £20,197

Total       £36,897 
         
         Ouch!!