You'll need to create a student finance account if you're a new student or sign into an existing account if you're a returning student. It can take up to 6 weeks to process your application. You might have to provide extra evidence. Step 5: update your details if your circumstances change
you must update your application if your circumstances change. For example if you:
change your course through clearing
change where you're going to live - for example with your parents instead of halls
find out how to update your application.
There's extra help for students with a disability
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over the past few years, you might have seen a lot of news about the government increasing the interest rate on plan 2 student loans. While this is technically true, and we're against the principle of students being burdened with extra debt, there is a very important point to stress: the added debt is essentially meaningless.
As the debt is already so big, and the repayments are so small, the chances are that you'll never repay the full amount anyway. The ifs (institute for fiscal studies) has previously estimated that 83% of students with plan 2 loans will have some or all of their debts paid for by the government.
Expecting your first student finance payment?
As student loan repayments are income contingent government expects to subsidise a proportion of student loans. The rab (resource, accounting and budgeting) charge is the estimated cost to government of providing a subsidy for the student finance system. It is the proportion of loan outlay issued each year which is not expected to be repaid, when future repayments are valued in present terms using the hmt discount rate. For more information about the hmt discount rate, see the methodology document. For example, the plan 5 full time higher education rab charge in 2026-27 is forecast to be 23%, meaning that 23% of loan outlay issued for full-time higher education study under plan 5 repayment terms in 2026-27 is not expected to be repaid.
There is information on gov. Uk about the repayment of different types of loans. Gov. Uk has a section on student finance explaining what loans you may be eligible to apply for. Details of how to contact the student loans company are on gov. Uk and hmrc have a guide on how to complete the student loan questions on a self assessment tax return. Below is a flowchart explaining how you can repay your student loans if you are on a plan 1, plan 2, plan 4 or postgraduate loan. How do i repay my plan 1 or plan 2 student loan? by litrg how do i repay my plan 4 student loan? by litrg.
The most common complaints in 2021 were: slc checks on the amount people can borrow: 1,480 complaints; 491 upheld (around 33%) poor advice given from slc: 1,073 complaints; 872 upheld (around 81%) customer service from slc: 895 complaints; 684 upheld (around 76%) the amount of time it took for slc to process an application or review evidence submitted by applicants: 808 complaints; 581 upheld (around 71%) problems with repayments for people working overseas: 415 complaints; 1 upheld (less than 1%) issues tend to peak in october and november, shortly after students arrive at university when funds are short, though january 2021 was also a popular month for complaints, after the second term began. The slc receives around 500 more complaints in these months compared with the rest of the year.