The Student Loans Company (SLC) is urging new full time undergraduate students in England, who are planning to attend university and college this autumn, to submit their student finance applications now.
By submitting their online applications before Friday (17th May) students can ensure that their tuition fee and maintenance loans payments are confirmed for the start of the academic year, subject to eligibility being confirmed. Students should apply even if they don't have a place on a course confirmed, or know their living arrangements, as these details can be changed in their student finance online account any time before the start of their course.
In the last academic year, SLC paid out almost £22billion in loans and grants and processed around 1.5 million student finance applications. Applications can take up to six weeks to process and given the scale of processing it's vital that students get their application submitted now to make sure there's time for it to be approved.
Jackie Currie, Executive Director Operations at SLC, said: "In order to have tuition fee and maintenance loan funding in place for the start of term, students should apply for their student finance now. Even if they don't have a confirmed place on a course or haven't decided what university they want to go to, that doesn't matter at this stage. All of those details, including university, course and living arrangements, can all be updated in the student's online account later in the year once it has been finalised. I would encourage any student to not delay and apply today."
Students can apply for Tuition Fee Loans to cover fees and Maintenance Loans to help with living costs. There may be circumstances where a student is able to access some extra money, for example if they have additional needs, have children, or are studying for a medical, social work or teaching course.
