Students still waiting :: Wessex Scene Online

Students still waiting

13th December 2009
Jessica Fuhl

Rate this story

Nov 08 - Top-Up Fees Set To Double
Oct 08 - Students Face Debt “Crisis”
Dec 09 - Southampton Takeover
Oct 09 - Students: rising learning fee threat
May 09 - Debt Getting in the Way of Degree?

More by Jessica Fuhl

Calls for the resignation of Chief Executive as many student loans remain delayed.

The president of the NUS has called for the resignation of the Chief Executive of the Student Loans Company as a result of the severe delays in the processing of student loans. Presently, over 100,000 students across the country are still waiting for maintenance and tuition loans which were due to be paid at the start of the semester.
Official figures released by the SLC on 1 November show that maintenance payments have not been paid to 119,000 approved applicants. Approximately a third of those have been assessed in the short term until full loan payments can be made, a third are awaiting further information to be supplied, and a third are described as ‘currently being processed’.

The crisis has angered students across the country, with 1 in 10 students still yet to receive loans nationwide, eight weeks after they were due.

Here at the University of Southampton, the Finance and Information Assistance Team (FIA) have seen approximately 30 students who have needed emergency loans as a result, significantly higher than average for this time of the year.

Chief Executive of the Student Loans Company (SLC), Ralph Seymour-Jackson, has said: ‘We are actively doing all we can to work through all applications as quickly as possible. Whilst the vast majority of students have received funding, we apologise that a number of students are still experiencing difficulties. We are working very hard to resolve each individual case and deal with every application as fast as we can.’
NUS President, Wes Streeting, however, has said that this is not good enough: ‘The SLC has given students a string of broken promises about when they should expect to receive some or all of their loan repayments.’

He continues to state, ‘Bosses have failed to acknowledge the distress they have caused to students, and have sought to apportion blame anywhere other than their own doorstep. If they had been open about the extent of the problems, universities would have been able to plan contingency funding more effectively. It is time for Ralph Seymour-Jackson to take full responsibility for this shambles and resign immediately.’

Lord Mandleson, newly appointed secretary of business, innovation and skills, which now deals with the UK’s higher education system, added his voice to the complaints earlier this month when he told the House of Lords, ‘The Company’s service has fallen well short of the expectations of students and their families.’

The calls for action to be taken come in line with the SLC’s recent review of debt recovery, as a result of writing off or cancelling Ł29m worth of public debt. With worries of writing off almost Ł30m of student debt, tightening debt recovery and the continued delays on many students’ applicants for loans, many are questioning the effectiveness of the Student Loans Company.

Southampton student Neil Saunders was still waiting for both his tuition maintenance loan seven weeks in to the semester. He said: ‘It’s been really inconvenient. I understand that there are sometimes problems, but the SLC need to be more effective in processing students’ applications. It’s made me really angry. I needed a lot of books for my course at the start of the semester that I couldn’t afford, and because the university hadn’t received my tuition fees for the year, my access to SUSSED, the library, and all other student services was suspended. I didn’t know if a lecture was cancelled, and I didn’t even have access to the doors of buildings because my card was inactive.’ Neil is not alone in the situation. Dhivyan Kandiah, a third-year law student, says he is ‘frustrated’ still waiting for his loan.

A spokeswoman for the University said: ‘The Student Fees section in the Finance Department have agreed that providing the student has supplied proof that an application has been made to the SLC (usually a print out from the on line system) they will not send reminders or ask for payment of tuition fees up front. Similarly, those students who are due to pay their own accommodation fees to the University and are awaiting maintenance loans from SLC have been allowed to defer the payment of accommodation fees until their loans arrive.’