Undergraduate student finance

Emilie Smith [00:00:05] Hello and welcome to this student finance presentation. My name's Emilie. I work in the student finance centre at the University of Portsmouth. We are a support service for students. So we help applicants and also current students identify and apply for funding. We also help our students manage their money with advice and also budgeting tools. We hold a pot of money as well called the university support fund, so should current students find themselves in financial difficulty they can apply to the support fund for a non repayable award through that. So this is something that I do every day. I'm also joined by my colleague, Lydia, do you want to introduce yourself Lydia?

Lydia Greenhalgh [00:00:47] Hi, Emilie. Hello, everybody, my name's Lydia. I'm a Regional Student Recruitment Coordinator for the University of Portsmouth. And I will be joining Emilie today to answer your questions. So there is a question mark function in the toolbar on the right hand side of your screen. And there should be a little question mark icon that you can use. If you click into that, you can ask some questions as we go along and we'll break halfway through and then also at the end as well. Here go, yep, there's your examples of that.

Emilie Smith [00:01:18] So just to give you an idea of where it is. OK.

Emilie Smith [00:01:20] So what am I going to cover? I'm going to go through an overview of the standard funding package from Student Finance England and so I'm assuming that you will be working with students that are ordinarily resident in England and therefore will be applying through Student Finance England. I'll also touch upon EU funding for 2021. I'll talk about bursaries and extra support that students can apply to. And then talk about repayments.

Emilie Smith [00:01:50] So first off, I thought it might be useful to talk about some key messages that I like to use when I'm out and about giving talks to applicants and also their families and supporters. So, we know that student finance is a really big topic for students when they're thinking about going to university and it can be a barrier to some groups. And there are two groups that often have the most concerns when it comes to money and university. One would be lower income households where often they're debt-adverse, the way that the student finance package is often talked about can reaffirm that adversion to debt. So here are some messages I like to promote around how it works. And then the second group, which are kind of middle income earners, and they're students where they will get less support from a maintenance loan for living expenses that maybe haven't done quite as much research about going to university in terms of funding and it can come as maybe a bit of a surprise when they get to university and look at their maintenance loan and living cost support.

So the key messages I like to talk about are the price tag versus the cost to the learner, so the price hike being the amount of money the student borrows and the cost of the learner will be the repayment contributions that students make. And often those two sums of money can vary quite a lot. The second is that you don't need to pay up front, so you don't need to have the money to go to university. The support package for low income households for the living costs is the biggest it's ever been. There will be things that students might have to pay for in terms of accommodation, but it's important that students know that they don't have to have that price tag before they get to university. And then that the student finance system isn't like other debt. The loan isn't like any other commercial debt or loan. And that's really important to to reiterate, especially for students that may be adverse to debt.

Emilie Smith [00:03:57] So what is student finance? When I talk about student finance it's these bodies that I'm talking about. The Student Loans Company and the Department for Education, so the Student Loans Company are the people that give the money and also the people that recoup the money. So students will be dealing with the Student Loans Company after they finish their studies at university. And the Department for Education, because education is devloved each of the countries or four nations have their own student finance funding body, their own national funding body. So the Department for Education are the people that write policies but studnt finance, or Student Finance England. And that's the funding body that I'll be talking about when I'm talking about the finance package. But Student Finance Wales, the Student Awards Agency Scotland and also Student Finance Northern Ireland also have their funding packages and the premise is similar.

Emilie Smith [00:04:59] Ok, so for EU students for 20/21, so up until now, EU students have been grouped in with home students who've got access public funds at university, they've been able to access tuition fee loans. But from 2021, the government have stated that you must have settled or pre-settled status under the EU settlement scheme in order to get student finance. This doesn't apply if you're an Irish national. They have yet to make further updates about 20/21. So I strongly recommend going to the student finance webpages on the gov.uk website. That would be on top of any residency criteria as well.

Emilie Smith [00:05:48] So what is available, so Student Finance England have three pots of money, essentially that students can apply for. One is the tuition fee loans and often this is the thing that's talked about a lot when it comes to going to university. So tuition fees are capped at £9,250 a year for full time course at public funded universities, obviously that would be different for part time courses and distance learning courses as well. But a maximum of £9,250 maximum. Placement year also attracts a tuition fee. So that is set at  £1,850 a year maximum and universities can choose where they go up to that maximum. And so at Portsmouth, we make our tuition fee for a placement year £925. And often parents will question why there is tuition fees for a placement year, but it is still an integral part of the learning that a student undertakes. It'll still be work based learning, and they'll still have access to academics and will still be submitting assessed coursework and have access to all facilities at the university as well. So any software they can access remotely and the library service, all those sorts of things, they are essentially still a student at the university and we know that placement years make a massive difference to the outcome of students in terms of their degree result so if those students that are worried about the price tag of going to university, don't take that placement year then they can really miss out at the end of it. So private HE providers can charge what they like for tuition fees and also accelerated courses can be more so an accelerated course is where you would do three years worth of study in two calendar years. So generally most students take out a tuition fee loan to cover that. So the tuition fee would cover 100% of the tuition fees at a publicly funded provider, you can get up to £11,100 for accelerated courses and up to £6,165 for private providers. So for the private providers that £6,165 might not meet all of those tuition fee costs but that's what you'd be entitled to apply for. The tuition fee loan isn't based on household income so even if parents are really, really high earners, that isn't a consideration. Tuition fee is based on personal eligibility criteria and also course and university eligibility so for the residency criteria it would be where you live and how long you've lived there. So currently it's you need to have lived in England for three years prior to the first day of the first year of your first course at university, and there are four first days that it could be. And then your nationality, so being an EU national or having pre-settled or settled status. Then the course and university eligibility as well. The tuition fee loan is paid directly to the university, so it's not money that the student can spend. The money is released from Student Finance England directly to the university. And any loan is repaid after university, depending on the earnings of the borrower.

Emilie Smith [00:09:27] When it comes to previous study, there's often something that students aren't aware of as much as we'd like them to be. So students are entitled to tuition fee loans for the current length of their course plus one additional year, minus any years previous study. And the reason this is important is if a student makes a decision about where to go and it's not the right decision for them, and then they maybe do the first year at university and then go on to do a second year at university and actually that course wasn't for them that subject wasn't for them, and they transfer to a university they've used up two years and unless they can transfer to the second year of their new course, they might find themselves not being able to access funding for the entire length of their course. There all ways that we can get around that, there are exemptions through compelling personal reasons so students can use CPR in order to get funding if they've been ill or there's been a death in the family that's made them not be able to study then yes, they can get repeat funding. But that previous study rule is really, really important to those students that are the least informed. That haven't engaged as much with maybe deciding on where they're going to go that fall foul of it so it is really important. And previous study can be incomplete years, even if they've done three or four months at the university that still counts with Student Finance England as one year. Any self-funded study is also counted and any overseas study as well. So it is really important that when students are thinking about university, they are really, really making a decision that's best for them. And if it isn't that they let the university know as soon as possible so that they can be released as soon as possible.

Emilie Smith [00:11:30] That's the tuition fee loan. And then we have loans for living costs as well. So living costs are there to cover things like rent, food, any sort of bills. That's because students can't be expected to work full time and study full time. So the maintenance loan is the loan that has the household income assessment with it. So, again, how much you get depends on your eligibility, on your household income and also where students live when they are studying. Now, this money is paid directly to the students in three instalments and its three instalments that gets students into a bit of a pickle when it comes to managing money. I think we'd all agree if we were paid our salaries in every four months that we also would struggle to budget, especially maybe, in your first year where you're not too sure about how much you're going to have to spend on certain things or how much money to put aside and there can be a lot of distractions. So we really do support our students with budgeting and give them the tools they need in order to make sure that money isn't a concern whilst they're studying, we don't want money to be a distraction from actual study and success at university. Again, that maintenance loan is grouped together with the tuition fee loan and repayment after university depends on earnings. It's not about that price tag, not about how much the student borrowed it's about by how that they've benefited from that qualification after they've left university.

Emilie Smith [00:13:14] So these are the maximum rates for 2021/2022. Generally, they go up each year, so they went up from last year in line with inflation. So the three categories are living in the parental home, the reason that's a lower amount is because the government see that if you living in a parental home, then your rent is likely to be less than if you were living in private accommodation or university accommodation. Also bills might be less as they'll be shared amongst your family. Living away from parental home is slightly more. And then the government have highlighted London as being a particularly expensive place to live for students. But that's largely due to rent prices. Say students would get a lot more. So the minimum loan is how much student's get regardless of household income. So if a student doesn't want to declare household income, doesn't want to go for any household income assessment then that's the loan amount they would get. In order to get the amount between the minimum loan and the maximum loan that's based on household income. Again, the idea being that those that need the most amount of support can access a higher level of loan.

Emilie Smith [00:14:34] So what is included in household income, so students under 25 years old are classed as dependent, and that under 25 is quite high, when I meat students that are maybe 23, 24, they're really surprised that Student Finance England still count them as dependents. So that means that the taxable gross income of their parents for the previous tax year so for the 19/20 tax year is used in that assessment. If parents are separated then Student Finance England will ask for the income of the parent that they normally live withor have the most contact with. If a student is split between two households, then it's up to the student to decide if it's 50/50. And if a parent lives with their partner, then their income will also be included even if that new partner is supporting a family in another household, they will still be considered as part of the household income for the household income assessment. This year obviously we're seeing a lot of people are having uncertainty around employment, so wages and household income will fluctuate. There is something called the current year income assessment. So students would submit their application as usual, and then they would ask to complete a current year income assessment. Now, Student Finance England only do that if the household income has decreased by at least 15% since the 19/20 tax year. It's really important that if a student does undertake that the figures they gave are as accurate as possible, because what Student Finance England can do is withhold future payments to make up the difference if there is an overpayment. So it is important that those figures are as accurate as possible. But if you know students that actually when they submit their application, they're a bit worried because maybe somebody is retired, somebody's been made redundant then they can do a current year income assessment.

Emilie Smith [00:16:40] If you're over 25 you are classed as independent and if you're single and over 25, then no household income is taken into consideration because you as the student, you're not expected to carry on working full time after you start your course so any income you're getting prior to the course would be irrelevant. If you live with your partner then they will be counted the same as a parent would be for an under 25 year old. So it would be their taxable income for the 19/20 tax year. Again current year income assessment can be undertaken if that is needed. It's really important that students are made aware of all these things that they can do in order to make sure that they get the amount of money that they they need to support themselves. If students are under 25, they can still be treated as independent if they have been married or in a civil partnership. If they have dependent children of their own, if they've spent time in local authority care, and I'll talk about the care leaver covenant later on as well, if they're estranged from their parents. So we see estrangement, especially with maybe other marginalised groups so it's really important that we outline that as something that at student can do, so if they aren't going to get any support from their parents, if they have an irreconsilable break down in relationship with their parents, then they can apply as an estranged student and Student Finance England have got a dedicated team now to help with that process as well, to make it much easier. Or if they have supported themselves financially for at least 36 months prior to going to university, so it doesn't have to be all in one go but they will need to provide evidence that they have paid rent, paid bills, they've earned an income in order to pay for those things as well. But if they have supported themselves financially for 36 months, they can be classed as independent. So, for example, a 24 year old that's worked since leaving school they could be classed as independent if they've got that proof there as well. And universities would be happy to help applicants navigate this as well so if you have a student and you think, oh, I don't know if they would count do get into contact with the university that they’re thinking of going to and quite often, I know at Portsmouth we'd be happy to help them. We have named contacts, dedicated advisors for certain groups of students as well. So we're more than happy to help where we can.

Emilie Smith [00:19:14] So this table here illustrates, I think, really well, the issue with those middle income earners that I was talking about previously. So you can see at the top there that for household income of £25,000 or less, those students are going to get quite a lot of support for their living costs. Tuition fee loan always stay the same. The maintenance loan you can see, that as household income goes up, that maintenance loan, and access to that means tested income assessed maintenance thing loan goes down. And it's not because there is going to be a difference in the cost of living to those students. But there is an expectation by the government that parents or supporters will make up that difference. And when some parents have maybe two young people at university, then it can be really hard for them to support their young people as they would like to. And it's getting these young people to make decisions about accommodation, about where they're going to study, about can they commute, all those sorts of things so that when they get to university finance isn't a massive shock to them, and that becomes almost a distraction to studying again.

Emilie Smith [00:20:30] So what I would encourage students to do is to use the student finance calculator to find how much they're entitled to, as soon as possible. So at the moment, you can find out how much for 2021, the 2022 figures aren't out there yet. But if students want to go on that and have a look now to see then they can do and that would at least give them some idea about what it is that they might be entitled to. The good thing about the system is that the students' own earned income isn't taken into consideration. So lots of students will have part time jobs in order to bolster their pennies, if they can, at the moment obviously, employment around hospitality is very hard, so that might not be the case at the moment, but usually students would have part-time jobs in order to help with their income.

Emilie Smith [00:21:25] So the next pot of money is the extra support pot of money. This is the non-repayable section of funding. It's there to support students that need it the most. And it's often the pots of money that people don't realise exists. So, for example, the Disabled Students Allowance, so the Disabled Students Allowance is there for extra support for students with a disability, long-term illness, mental health conditions, specific learning difficulty. It's based on needs rather than income. So students would have to undergo a needs assessment and whatever money or allowance they are provided in order to purchase services or to fund transport is non-repayable. They can apply at any time whilst they're at university. So I know that some universities find that because of the types of courses that students go on to, they have a large amount of undiagnosed students, possibly with a specific learning difficulty. And once that's been made clear, or they've been diagnosed at university then they can apply. There's no there's no kind of limits when you can apply for that. It's changed recently so before it used to have four headings that the fund came under. It's been grouped together this year, so it'll be £25,000 per year to cover all of those headings. The transport or travel costs or travel allowances still remains technically uncapped, so that is something that students can still get if they need to and they will be expected to meet the first £200 of any claim for computer equipment. So universities will have different set ups, so at Portsmouth we pay back that £200, but Disabled Students Allowance, it's really, really important that students that might be entitled to it apply as soon as possible so that funding is there in place so they can buy the services and the equipment they need in order to make sure they can access their studies at the start of term, along with all their other cohort, so do encourage students to apply for that as soon as possible. It's applied for at the same time as the tuition fee loan and maintenance loan through Student Finance England on that application form.

Emilie Smith [00:23:56] There's also non-repayable support for students with dependents. So this is income assessed. There's Parents Learning Allowance for students with children, there's the Childcare Grant and also the Adult Dependents Grant so for students who have a partner who has no income. So that's also money that doesn't need to be repaid. And students can apply for that again through the Student Finance England online application.

Emilie Smith [00:24:23] Then there are university bursaries and there are lots of these, so each university will have its own package of bursaries that they will have for students to apply for. Some will be based on household income. Some will be based on personal circumstances. There might be some for academic or extracurricular activity and some will be subject specific.

Emilie Smith [00:24:42] So at Portsmouth, we have our Care Leavers Bursaries, so we have signed up to the Care Leaver Covenant, which is holistic support package. So we have a designated advisor for any care leavers and we encourage them to make contact with their designated adviser as early as possible so that we can really help them through the application process, finding accommodation, navigating through registration, all those basic things so that when they get to university, they're all settled. They have £1,700 a year in bursaries and also we guarantee accommodation all year round. So over Christmas and also through the summer holidays, they have access to university accommodation for the whole period if they want it. We also have a Standalone Bursary. So that would be for our estranged students. So we've signed up for the standalone project, again, it's a suite of support rather than just being financial so again they have a designated adviser, somebody to support them so do you have any students that are thinking of coming to Portsmouth they might be eligible to apply as an estranged student. You can put them in touch with that designated advisor. They'll get £1,000 a year non payable bursary and again, guaranteed accommodation all year round. They'll also get priority access to wellbeing support as well at university. We have a Young Carers bursary so for those young people who are providing care and support for somebody at home. Then they can get additional money and generally that's to cover things like transport costs or the fact that they might not be able to undertake part-time work because actually, their time will be spent caring for somebody. And then we having a university bursary, so the university bursary is for lower-income households so those that get the maximum in maintenance loan support. And so this is £750 per year. So this is only for Student Finance England funded students only. And we get the information about eligibility for the university bursary from their Student Finance England application, when they apply there's a box that says, can we share this information with the university? And that's where we get their information from. Even if students don't want to draw down on the maintenance loan. And there might be reasons for that that I'll come to later on we do encourage them to submit the information if they might be eligible for some of these bursaries, because that's where we get the information from. If they don't want to, then they can come to us independently for assessment. But that's where we get it from.

Emilie Smith [00:27:20] And as I mentioned about subject specific support. So this year, there's been an extension to the Learning Support Fund package for the NHS. I think this time last year it was being referred to as the NHS bursary. There was lots of announcements about an increased NHS bursary, but there is already an NHS bursary. So it got very confusing. So this has been repackaged as an extension to the NHS Learning Support fund. It's in addition to any loans students can get or Disabled Students Allowance. It does not need to paid back, and there are six categories that students can get. So some of them are just for new students and ones yet to be decided. But there is the parental support, there's also travel expenses and dual accommodation allowance. So if a student's on placement, and needs to incur additional costs in order to meet their placement or get second accommodation closer to the placement that's what's funded. There's the exceptional support fund which essentially is a bit like a hardship fund, the training grant, which was the big headline amount of £5,000 a year. The subject specialist payments, there are certain subjects where they attract additional funding and then the regional incentive. And the regional incentive, I checked on the NHS facebook page and at midnight yesterday they still haven't decided where the regional incentive will be applied. So keep an eye out for that, because I don't know how it's going to be decided.

Emilie Smith [00:29:00] So eligibility, in order to get this money students have to be eligible for the full funding through their national funding body, so they have to be eligible for maintenance loan and tuition fee loan. They need to be studying at a university in England. As I said, funding for education is devolved as is healthcare is devolved. So each national funding body would have their own bursary or funding set up. So this is for the NHS England. You need to be starting a new full academic year on or after September 2020 so if students are taking an NHS course or one of the accredited courses as a second course and are eligible for the full package of support from their national funding body then as long as they start their course after September 2020 then they can get that. So as I said the regions are yet to be defined by the Dept for Health & Social Care. You can see the list of courses there, there are quite a few on that. The exciting one for us definitely is that paramedics are included as well in that list.

Emilie Smith [00:30:12] So these are the pots of money. You can see there's quite a lot, it adds up quite quickly. So the subject specialist payment and also the regional incentive are for new students only. And part time students will receive pro-rata payments.

Emilie Smith [00:30:26] So to give you an idea about what sort of income a student could get, so the maximum, this would be a mental health nursing student at the university, based on the fact that we don't know if they'd still get a regional incentive. They might be in a region that would come under that, but they'd get the £5,000 in training grant, the £1,000 for being a specialist shortage course. Because they are entitled to the maximum maintenance loan, they get £9,488 and they get the university bursary. So you can see that that would come up to £15,953 a year and for the month it would be £1,353.17. Which isn't too bad as a living cost.

Emilie Smith [00:31:19] Encourage students to to the Learning Support Fund Facebook page, they have daily Q&A I think, they've been really good at keeping up to date with things, quite often they're waiting on things from the Dept. of Health & Social Care but do encourage them to stay in contact that way.

Emilie Smith [00:31:32] If you're studying outside of England. Then students are quite often surprised that they're being asked to pay £9,250, so, for Scottish student studying in Scotland there are no fees. And if you are a Northern Irish student studying in Northern Ireland the fees are lower. But because they are ordinarily resident in England they will still be charged £9,250. If they decide to go outside of the UK for the whole of their studies, there's no support from the UK government. If as part of their course they're studying a year abroad then there would be some support, they'd be able to get a maintenance loan for that year, but not if the entirety of their course is being studied in an institution outside of the UK.

Emilie Smith [00:32:20] I am going to stop there for a bit and ask Lydia if we've got any questions at all?

Lydia Greenhalgh [00:32:28] Hi Emilie. Yes so we have one question, which is quite a general one which was will the people listening to this presentation today get the slides? You will receive a recording of this presentation a couple of days after today. So you will receive that. And then we are also developing our personal development hub at the moment our professional development hub at the moment, which is basically a CPD platform for teachers and advisors. And there will be resources that will go on there as well. Because Emilie somebody said that your slides are really useful for breaking it all down, so yes, you will receive them. That's fine. And you'll receive a recording of this presentation as well. And we have another question as well from somebody listening. So who can support a student in proving their estrangement? So if not somebody within the school who can do that?.

Emilie Smith [00:33:23] So, yeah, it can be quite tricky for students to prove estrangement, especially it has to be an irreconcilable breakdown in the relationship. But they've made it a bit easier. So you can always go to the university, or the student can always ask the university if they can support a teacher that knows them well, maybe a professional, a medical professional can also support them. But as I said, the student finance central Student Finance England have dedicated staff now, which makes it much, much easier for students to do that so you can get in touch with them, or encourage the student to get in touch with them and find out the answer to that, but universities generally are quite happy to help.students navigate that as it can be a really tricky time.

Lydia Greenhalgh [00:34:14] Fab thank you. And there's just another one. Is there a deadline for student finance?

Emilie Smith [00:34:19] Yeah. Well, yes there is a deadline for student finance, so in terms of timelines, which I'll cover again in a second, but it's the May, so nine months after you start studying is the deadline for stduent finance, the last time at which you can apply. So student's starting this September will have until May in order to submit their student finance so if they start university and think actually I didn't want a maintenance loan I don't need it, but things change, then they can apply for it later on. But we encourage students to apply by the May before they start studying. So their finance is in place for the September or October when term starts.

Lydia Greenhalgh [00:35:08] Yes, absolutely. Get it done quickly. That's everything for now Emilie, I will come back at the end as well in case you have any questions when you're done. Thank you.

Emilie Smith [00:35:22] Okay, so how do you apply for student finance? This is probably the easiest part of student finance is the application process in terms of it being an online portal students can do all they need to do it takes about fifteen minutes. And it's really simple. They will need to create their own account. They'll be given a customer reference number. They'll get asked a secret question, an answer to a secret question. And also a password. They need to remember all that information because that is still the same information they would need to communicate with Student Finance England after they finish their studies as well. So whilst they're doing it, when they're filling out their application form make sure they realise that the information they've been giving is something they need to write down because they'll be asked every time they communicate with them, what's your customer reference number? That's really important.

Emilie Smith [00:36:18] We also say to students that even if they don't know if they're going to apply for university, apply for student finance, if you don't draw down on the money, then you never enter kind of a financial contract with Student Finance England or the Student Loans Company. So you can cancel your account at any time, but if you do decide to go to university, may be after clearing through exam results and you've not sorted it out then they can, those first kind of six, seven weeks be really tricky. And that's the time when Student Finance England are at their busiest because every year students need to apply so they are dealing not only with new students, but also returning students as well. So in order to apply students will need to create their own account. They need proof of identity. And this can be tricky, actually if a student doesn't have maybe access to their birth certificate, they need a current passport so an in date passport. They also need their national insurance number. And because you can apply for student finance without giving your national insurance number some students are like, oh, that can wait, but actually, they won't release the money without the national insurance number because that's how they recoup the money after finishing. And it can take a while to get a national insurance. If the student doesn't have a national number they have to contact the Dept for Work & Pensions, they have to have an interview or fill out a form and that can take time. And then the national insurance number needs to be checked and that can take two weeks. So all these things can really add up. So we ask students to get all that information sooner rather than later so that when they make their application they've got it all to hand. They also need a bank account for the money to be paid into. It doesn't need to be a student account. They can change the account it goes into later on or they can move the money around if they want to. If a student is going to be classed as dependent and they are going to access that means tested element of the maintenance loan, or if they think they are entitled to a bursary, so some university bursaries the household incomes are much more generous than the one that I showed you because they maybe have less students from lower income households going to their university. So it might be really in the student's best interests to fill out that means tested element of the maintenance loan, even if they don't want to draw down on it. But they'll need their parent or supporter to create their own student finance account. They will need their national insurance number and then their income from the relevant tax year. Generally, that's it. Sometimes Student Finance England might go back and do some checks and ask for a P60. But generally that is it. So in terms of timeline applications open the end of February, there's no date at the moment, I don't think and so if they're going to start September 2021, we expect applications to open at the end of February. And for that reason, applicants don't need to confirm course details. They just need to have an idea of their first choice. They don't even need to have submitted their UCAS application in order to apply for student finance, when they go in and they choose the university and the course it's just a best guess. It's fine because they can change it once they've got the results or once they've got their offer in, and then depending on where they go it might change their allowance if they're going to be studying in London or living in London. But apply as soon as possible. It can take around six to eight weeks for applications to be approved. And that's if students haven't to go back and forth for things like national insurance details or maybe parents having to confirm income. So, you know, if you apply in August, six to eight weeks is really close to the start of term. And apply by the end of May so Student Finance England will give kind of a recommended deadline of the end of May for that funding to start at the beginning of the academic year but we do know that the last possible application date is the end of May of the year of study.

Emilie Smith [00:40:31] So to give you an idea of living costs. Every university, every city has slightly different living costs. There are some really good websites out there that can give you an idea. Quite often universities will have the figures on their pages as well. So these are the figures for Portsmouth, for students living in Portsmouth. You'll see that halls and private accommodation are the big ticket items there as you'd expect. One of the things that you can do as advisers is when students maybe from middle income households that are finding they're getting the lower amount of maintenance loan is get them to really think about their accommodation. Do they need to live in a really snazzy block of flats and near the city centre or could they live in slightly cheaper accommodation? Maybe private accommodation is generally cheaper. And get them to think about do they want to live at home and commute? Maybe for the first year until the second year when they get a bit more comfortable with their friends, they know more people then they can move out. Lots and lots of students do actually stay at home to go to university. I stayed at home to go to university, and I have friends who went to the same 6th form college as me that stayed at home for the first year. And were commuting during that year, made loads of really good friends and then in second year moved out to accommodation. So there are ways around it but it's about students being prepared for the decisions they've got to make. Think about budgeting whilst their at university. When it comes to halls and private accommodation, the thing when I said there's no payment upfront one thing students might have to look at is about deposits for rent and accommodation. So one thing to be aware of is that if a student enters a contract with a private accommodation provider and they don't end up going to that university that contract is between them and the private accommodation provider, the university doesn't really have much sway at all. If they go into university halls and they pay a deposit for halls so £250 pounds and the holding fee for that room. If the student doesn't end up going to university, then that deposit can be returned. And so just to bear that in mind as well. When parents are thinking about accommodation, really get to think about the contract they're being asked to sign maybe as guarantor and who they're signing with if they're having to sign with all other students parents as well.

Emilie Smith [00:43:04] And there are some really good websites that I like to refer students to some kind of peer support websites like the student room. And also save the student is good as well. For parents then which university is really good. And also, UCAS have loads and loads of really good information.

Emilie Smith [00:43:26] So I said before, there are some students that don't want to take up student loans and it can be because of the interest that's added. Now the interest is added from day one, so whilst they're studying interest is added and it then goes on a sliding scale based on income. It doesn't affect monthly repayment because monthly payments are based on earnings. It will impact the length of repayment if you're a really high earner, then you'd be looking at paying for what you've borrowed and the interest. But around 80 percent of students don't repay what they borrow plus the interest. So the interest rate really doesn't make much difference then. The idea is that the money they borrow is worth the same when they borrow it as when they pay it back. And after 30 years, any balance is wiped off, including the interest as well. And it's the interest rate and also the repayment that makes it really hard to work out for students what the cost of learning is going to be for them.

Emilie Smith [00:44:47] So student's enter repayment the April after leaving university, so the next tax year. And I think it's really important that students know that even if they don't complete their course, they will still be entering repayment. So if they've borrowed any money at all, then they'll still be entering repayment for the money they've borrowed. That's important for students to know as well. They only make repayments once they reach the threshold. So anything below the threshold, they don't make any payments at all, so part time and not earning above the threshold then they don't have to make any contributions. If they are in a civil partnership or marriage, where their partner earns above the threshold, they still wouldn't have to repay any contributions because it's their earnings that impacts repayment. So it's 9% of everything earned above that threshold. And I said after 30 years end. Repayments do still need to be paid if learners live abroad, so there is a list of thresholds based on country, based on the cost of living in those countries and students will be expected to repay based on the cost of living. So that threshold will be slightly different, but it will still be nine percent. And if students, some students might find that they go on to do a master's or postgraduate qualification, they can't access the funding if they've lived abroad, and they've not been paying contributions. So there are ways that Student Finance England will find out. It's a government body so they will know where you are.

Emilie Smith [00:46:29] So, the loan repayments, so this is to is give an idea to parents and to learners, they are based on income, and taken directly through salaries. So it's not something that students have to worry about, people knocking on their door, especially if you think about families where debt is a real issue and brings a lot of negativity with it, this is collected in a very different way. If they're self-employed, then it will be done through their tax assessment.

Emilie Smith [00:47:00] And this is something I like to use it to illustrate this issue. So going to use a real-life example here. We're going to look at animation graduate. And once, because the thresholds there, £26,575, their first job they get as an intern, and actually they're not earning enough so for that first year or so they're not earning enough to pay, the second they get a promotion and they hit £25,000 they're still in the repayment period, because they've left university so in this time they're still in the repayment period but they're still not paying back. Then they get promoted. And it's nine percent of everything over that £26,575. So you can see they've got the untouched amount, before that. Promotion again and you can see their bit gets bigger but they are still earning more than maybe they would've done if if they'd not had the qualifications, not had the experience. And at the top end there you can see that their take home is £2,666.67 a month. And their student loan contribution would be £130.69. So it is a significant amount, but it's not stopping them doing things they want to do.

Emilie Smith [00:48:21] And it comes out of your salary,  so it's not money you can spend and then be asked for it back. So things for students to know, when I say it's not like other loans. Your current credit score doesn't impact your ability to take out student loan. Even if you've been really, really bad at borrowing previously, then you can still take out a student loan. The majority of students pay back less than they borrow. That price tag is going to be a lot higher for a majority of students than the actual cost to them. Repayments can go up and down. So if you want to take a career break and have a family, go part time, maybe a change of career and your income goes down, then your payments will go down. No one else is responsible for your repayment. That's really important. They can't be passed back to your parents or passed on to your children, it's your loan. And it doesn't stop students getting a mortgage. They will do a bit about kind of how much disposable income you have to pay for your mortgage, but the actual max, it's not the same as having £35,000 worth of credit card debt, it's not viewed in the same way. And it doesn't appear on your credit file. So there are some really good websites, I often encourage parents to go to the Money Saving Expert website. Martin Lewis has some really good videos on it. And then for things like the buraries and the grants, then the complete university guide have a downloadable table that you can have a look at and it outlines the offer from every single university and it has them for all four nations, that can be really useful. Things like grant fairy, scholarship hub, there are some really kind of weird and wonderful scholarships and bursaries that students can access. So I always encourage them to have a look. Okay. So I think that's it from me. I'm going pass back to Lydia and see if we've got any questions.

Lydia Greenhalgh [00:50:22] Hello, Emile. Hi. So we do have a couple of questions. So somebody just wants to confirm that for student finance we usually go live around February to March time as normal? Because obviously last year it was quite delayed wasn't it? So fingers crossed this year.

Emilie Smith [00:50:39] Yeah, I hope so. It was difficult last year because obviously we weren't out and about helping colleges and students talk about when you could apply. There was a little bit of uncertainty. But yeah, it should be the end of February. Again, I'd say keep an eye on Student Finance England's social media pages, especially, because they often do quite good campaigns that you can just take their content and repost or retweet or even print out stuff and put it around or put it on your screens if you've got digital screens around college. It is, I can't stress the majority of my, I'm back on campus every other week, so at the moment I've got my lovely home. But being back on campus the first three or four weeks been spent trying to help students that hadn't thought about coming to university or maybe hadn't thought about applying for student finance and now they're at university and we're saying, well, we need fee money because we need to make sure that you can you can pay your student fees that, oh, I haven't applied for student finance, will it come in time, so that's a lot of stress on already a really, really stressful situation, so anything we can do to alleviate that like encourage them to get their application form in, and  they need to cancel it they can cancel it, if they need to defer they can defer.

Lydia Greenhalgh [00:52:04] So obviously, if they do defer Emilie, it means that they would have to resubmit a new assessment the following year, is that right?

Emilie Smith [00:52:10] Yes. Indeed they would. The good thing about it is, though, if it had been agreed on principle, then they should be confident of their eligibility. So things like the residency criteria, the national insurance number, the nationality status, the things that tend to hold it up the longest would all have been done previously.

Lydia Greenhalgh [00:52:34] Yeah. Ok, brilliant. So I've got quite an interesting question here for you. You're going to have to put your brain in today. So I've had somebody ask, what finance can a French student without a UK passport who has been studying in England for A-levels for two years, apply for, what are they eligible for? French student, without a UK passport been in England setting A levels for 2 years.

Emilie Smith [00:52:58] Yes. So this is going to be a tricky one because they need to apply for, so in order, under the EU 2021 provision as I understand it, they would need to have pre-settled or settled status. They need to apply for that. And in order to get pre-settled or settled status, you'd need to have specific residency criteria. So I think it might be five years in order to get that. And then on top of that, so even if that student was a UK national, they would need to have lived in England or in the UK for three years before the first day of the first course that they study. So even if that student was a UK national and had lived in France or in Nigeria or in Jamaica for the whole time, and they then came to study, they'd still find themselves in a bit of a pickle. So I would suggest that student contact Student Finance England and find out as soon as possible what the criteria is regards to them, and they might have to take a year out in order to meet their residency criteria, but apply for pre-settled status or settled status, as soon as possible.

Lydia Greenhalgh [00:54:21] Fab. Brilliant. Thank you, Emilie. And that's all the questions we have. So Emilie has put her address on that slide for you. So if any of you have any other questions, please send them through to Emilie, I'll hand back over to you.

Emilie Smith [00:54:35] Brilliant. Excellent. So in terms of what next, then obviously encourage students to, I can't say it enough, apply as soon as possible, but also get them to find out what sort of bursaries are out there. Ask the universities that they're thinking of applying to about bursaries and find out the money. Also in terms of things they can do to prepare themselves. I know that the team have got some webinars that students can sign up to or you as advisers can sign up to, they've got a virtual experience hub to make sure that students do know what they're getting themselves into when they're starting a course and then virtual open days, so for virtual open days as a support service we'll also be at our virtual open days. And lots of universities have support services like ours to encourage them to reach out. But as Lydia said if you have any questions at all, you can contact us through our social media site or by email. We've done quite a few virtual presentations to parents in the evenings, so that can be arranged as well if you'd like some extra support in getting that information out there don't hesitate this is what we do, this is what we want to do to help people understand what can be quite a complicated system. But thank you so much for listening. I hope you've have a lovely hour with us. Yeah. Good luck with everything. And take care. Hopefully see some of you in the future.