‘What, still no money?’ For three months I had completed the impossible. I had sustained myself on only £500 pounds. Now the annoying cash machine font told me I had nothing left. I was surviving off compassionate sachets of cup a soup from my parents, plus a bag of couscous. My housemate’s got so concerned, ‘Please, go buy some real food,’ they said and shoved a £20 into my hand.
I was only one in a group of many hundreds that last September, were all desperately checking their bank balance.
In October, I tried rubbed my bank card as if a genie in a NatWest uniform would appear and drown me in cash (I do not advise this, as all I got was strange looks from passers by).
As things were getting slowly worse and as my cupboards only held things like HP sauce, I thought I needed to have a serious chat with Student finance. This is basically how it went.
Finance: How can I help you?
Student: Could you tell me how much longer I’m going to have to wait for my loan?
Finance: Did you check the website?
Student: Yes, it says you’re still processing my claim.
Finance: Keep checking the website. Or call back in three weeks if nothing has changed.
Student: Look I’m sorry, I’m getting rather desperate. I don’t have any money.
Finance: I’ll have a quick look at your claim…oh…can I put you on hold?
It turns out that at some point they had read my age incorrectly. So they’d been attempting to base my finances on the income of my parent’s. An obvious slip that should have been rectified much earlier, I thought.
Why was my age an issue? A friendly University adviser informed me that whilst I was under twenty-five years, I had to be tested by the income of my parents (If I had not lived three years independently from them). They call this ‘means’ testing. Yet as soon as I turned twenty-five I needed to be tested by my own income. I had befuddled poor Student Finance by applying in April, before my birthday.
Since September 2008 the system Student Finance follows has dramatically altered. Prior to 2008, 150 local authorities dealt with all the applications for loans, and the SLC, (Student Loans Company, Student Finances support branch) paid the students and kept all the records.
Instead of this, they arrange it all on their own. Their Glasgow headquarters, in January 2010, cut 150 jobs, with a further 45 transferred to their Darlington offices, employing only 1,894 people. Do they think cutting down on staff will assist in extinguishing their persistent problems?
A few weeks after the ‘age’ incident I decide to call up again, as still no change.
Student: It’s getting really difficult to live now, how long will my claim take?
Finance: Your claim is being processed.
Student: I know that, I need to know how long. I have no money to even buy a bus ticket to Uni.
Finance: We are looking at your claim, I’m sorry but you are in a queue. We have a lot of claims. It should be looked at by the end of the week
Student: So I’ll get some money by Monday then maybe?
Finance: No, your claim will be looked at. Not fully processed.
Student: Any idea how long that will be?
Finance: It’s best if you check our website. We update it all the time. Call back in about three weeks if there is no change.
I would call up every week, with practically the same response. Nearly into December, the money finally arrived, £1176.12. I was sure I had received more the previous year. The trouble was I didn’t know how much I was entitled to. This information seems to be elusive and many other students I chatted to about this, had no clue and said, ‘I was just so glad to finally get some cash.’
Are students getting short changed without their knowledge? University is supposed to be a safer way to enter the working world, not to be scammed by massive companies.
Mid-December arrived, and I was yet again in trouble. After paying: my overdraft, rent (£350 a month, plus a retainer) and bills (Electricity £80 to name one). I was left with next to nothing.
The University had sent a letter at the beginning of term explaining, as I had such a low income they wanted to assist me with a bursary. Because of the delay in Student Finance, I’d been unable to pay my tuition fees, and so they had not been able to ‘process my claim’, therefore no bursary.
Extending my overdraft was finally my only option. I worked my holidays at Tesco’s, along side my University studies (doesn’t this some what defeat the object of a student loan?)
The saga continues, in February 2011 I raised my concerns of not receiving my bursary with my University. It was then that I discovered that Student Finance had not means tested me, therefore I could not be given a bursary; as they had no clue to my current monetary state.
Thoroughly confused to say the least, I called up Student Finance, waited the customary thirty minutes of, ‘If you have made a claim and are calling to see if it has been processed please visit our website at www…If you are inquiring about evidence that you need to provide please visit our website at …’ You get the idea.
A human finally intervened. They were as confused as I was, that I had not been means tested. I was promised that they would forward it and have it sorted out. Brilliant, I though. A winking light at the end of this blasted tunnel. Or was it?
A couple of days later I find an email, it outlined that they still needed evidence from my Father about his income. This was slightly confusing, as I was being means tested by my income now. So I did what all women in distress do. Cry, and then call their Father.
Talking to other students about money, I found more than half of them had suffered from troubles like this. One told me, ‘I got worried when I found too much money in my bank account…I worked it out that they had over paid me £980!’ She went on to explain that it had taken some time before they would except that they had made a mistake. She said that, ‘They said I was completely entitled to the money and to stop worrying, that it was because my Dad’s circumstances had changed… but they hadn’t, he’d just changed jobs. His income was exactly the same.’
I asked her what she did next, ‘I left it a week, worried all the way through and decided to just call them and ask if they could just double check. They rechecked and changed their minds…I was told I had to send them a cheque for the money or else they would cancel my loan for next year.’
This was just one of the many bizarre tales I heard. So many students struggle with debt every year. Is it worth their while? Will I be able to get a job after all this to pay back what was achingly and grudgingly given?
With no alternative available and student debt looking to increase, will Student Finance rise to the task, to simply get money to people on time? Or will we simply see a new climax of catastrophe’s as an organisation petulantly whimpers, ‘No we can do this and we don’t need anybody’s help!’■
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