Blah.

[deathcookie]

Student finance can bite me. After rent and tuition fees are taken off, my loan will give me the grand total of £5.70 a week to live on next year. Whee! Thank goodness I had the foresight to hold back £2,000 in savings.

In their infinite wisdom, the LEA assessed me on my mother's earnings, so slapped tuition fees on me, and reduced the amount of

Comments

[beingjdc]

You need to persuade your LEA that you and your parents are irreconcilably estranged. Or you need to get married and divorced very quickly.

http://www.dorsetcc.gov.uk/index.jsp?articleid=2763

Make sure you write to your MP for advice, citing clearly that your parent has refused to pay. There's not much they can do, but eventually if everyone in this situation makes them aware of it, they'll put pressure on to make parental contributions compulsory.

[deathcookie]

A firm but well-meaning letter will be sent later today. The last time I wrote a letter was when Jane Griffiths was still an MP, and getting a form 'thank you for your suggestions' letter is a little disheartening.

I'm also going to research more facts and figures, so I don't sound like a stupid and ill-informed child. :P

[beingjdc]

Er, Jane Griffiths *is* still an MP.

[deathcookie]

I was tired and phrased that all wrong. Meh. What I meant is that she's not the MP in my area anymore.

[karen2205]

Tell your bank you're a student and they'll give you a nice interest free overdraft (negotiate a higher overdraft limit than they'll give you for free if you think you'll need it - you don't want to accidentally exceed the limit and have an unauthorised overdraft 'cos they'll penalise you for it nastily

[deathcookie]

Wow, thanks so much! That's really helpful, and I appreciate the trouble it took you to write that.

[not_on_fire]

It's ridiculous that at 18/19, you are considered as an independent for the purposes of driving, having sex, voting, drinking etc. Oh, and paying taxes of course.

But on this single issue of university funding, there's this ludicrous situation where you are treated as a dependent. It's totally inconsistent and unfair on everyone.

[behindthefool]

As a student, I technically agree with you. But if all students were treated as equal independents, there would be no system to decide whom gets what money as everyone would be entitled to the same. Not many 18/19 year olds have had well paid full time jobs running up to their university life. Councils only have a certain amount of money to lend to students and so they feel it's more important to give more money to those without any possible chance of support, let alone one who has the choice to tell their children whether they can bugger off or not.

:S

[karen2205]

there would be no system to decide whom gets what money as everyone would be entitled to the same

I think the point is that there are better measures of who needs help than parental income in the previous tax year. While low parental income indicates that a student is likely to need help, it's possible that this student already has savings/grandparents who are prepared to help out. High parental income does not always go together with parents being prepared/able to help out.

About the only thing in the top up fees legislation I agree with is that fees will be paid back after one graduates, so that students will need to find less money when studying - since they just need enough to live on.

And it's not Councils who do the lending (though LEAs assess what students are entitled to, to national standards - they have very little discretion in how they do this) it's central government.

[deathcookie]

Um, 20 now. Which makes the LEA's view of me as a dependent even worse if you think about it.

It's unfair on everyone. Except, of course, the rare breed of people who have parents that pay for everything. They're more common than you'd expect.

[behindthefool]

I realise I should know this, but where are you going to university and what are you studying?

Trust me, the money thing will work out. Students are ALWAYS skint so you won't be alone. There are plenty of ingenious ways of spending a little amount of money but still having lots of fun. Ones which don't include working the streets... ;)

Being skint is all part of the fun. I know it doesn't seem like it now!

[deathcookie]

Going to Leeds to study a Geography (major) BA. (Saying major sounds awfully American, but that's technically my course name!)

I'm sure I'll survive, it's just stressing me at the moment because I dropped out of my last university and really don't want history to repeat itself. At least I'm in catered halls, though; about 50% of my budget at UCL went on takeaway!

[ex_pipistre]

Blah. That sucks sweaty donkeys.

I somehow managed to evade fees entirely, so unfortunately I have no cunning suggestions for you.

[deathcookie]

Last time I also managed to evade fees. I have no idea how, considering my mother was earning more.

It sucks. But it'd take a lot more than that to stop me from studying. :)

[dbrose]

thats because youre Scottish. The scots dont have to pay tuition fees.

*ponders possibility of rapidly moving to Scotland*

[ex_pipistre]

But I hadn't been living in Scotland for long enough then [I moved there from America- I'm from Brighton originally]. I managed to evade having to pay normal or foreign student fees because my parents work for the university and managed to persuade them that we'd've stayed in America if Edinburgh Uni hadn't hired them. I'd've much rather gone somewhere else, to be honest, as it meant 4 more years under my mum's boot!

For anyone interested in evading fees by Scottishness, you must be resident in Scotland for 3 years prior to the start of your course.