Student Finance Information

Messages For Continuing Full-Time, HE Undergraduate Students receiving Student Finance

Re-apply for your student finance as soon as possible to make sure you have your money when you return to your course. You can do this at: www.gov.uk/studentfinance

Re-applying for student finance is easy. You can go online and re-apply for student finance as soon SFE tell you the applications are open. Once they have processed your application you will receive your Student Finance Entitlement letter. If you applied for Disabled Students’ Allowances (DSAs) last year along with your student finance, you won’t need to re-apply for DSAs every year. If you’re applying for DSAs for the first time, you’ll need to download the form

from www.gov.uk/studentfinance, or let us know and we’ll send you a copy.

For a range of helpful tools and guidance visit: http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/content.php?r=5659-Student-Finance

It is important to note that most students will not be expected to pay anything up front. Every UK student studying for their first undergraduate degree is entitled to apply for a tuition fee loan. There is also a maintenance loan available for students to help with the cost of living whilst studying.

The fees for all full-time undergraduate degree courses have been set at £9,250 per annum. You will only start to pay back the Tuition Fee Loan and the Maintenance Loan once you have graduated and are earning over £25,000. There is more information about how this is calculated on the Student Finance Guide.

Payment Of Tuition Fees

If you are having any trouble with paying your fees please get in touch, as arrangements can be made to spread the cost of tuition fees. If you wish to make arrangements to pay or have any other enquiries regarding payments please contact:

Financial Services Office,
Chancellor’s Mall,
t: +44 (0)1204 903 180
e:  creditcontrol@bolton.ac.uk

For details of ways to pay and the university bank details please click here

Need To Speak to A Member of The Funding Team?

If you have any questions or queries about your student funding, please get in touch with a member of the Funding team using the contact details below:

t: 01204 903733
e: Studentfunding@bolton.ac.uk

Help With Student Finance England

If you are having problems with your student funding and would like one of the Student Funding Advisors to contact Student Finance England on your behalf, you will need to set up “Third Party Consent to Share”.

This means that an advisor from the university can speak to Student Finance England regarding your application for student funding on your behalf, without the need for you to be present, to facilitate this process you must first contact Student Finance England and give permission for your information to be shared with a third party.

To Set Up Third Party Consent to Share:

• Contact Student Finance England: +44 (0)300 1000 607

• Request to set up Third Party Consent to Share be given to “the advisory team at my university”

• Create your own Consent Password

You will then need to notify the Student Funding Advisor of your Customer Reference Number, chosen Consent Password and student details.

*Third Party Consent to Share is not consent to share for bursary and scholarship purposes

The Student Loans Company (SLC)

SLC has launched improvements to its online account system to make it more efficient and user friendly. You can now log in to your online account using either your Customer Reference Number (CRN) or the email address that is registered to your account. You can also now chat to an advisor online from your online account. Steps have also been taken to make it simpler to retrieve secret answers and passwords.

Top Tips to help you maintain your online account: You can now log in to the Student Finance account using either your Customer Reference Number (CRN) or the email address that is registered to your account.

• If you don’t know your password, or secret answer you can click on the “Forgotten your password/secret answer?” links and tell us some basic information to identify your account so that you can reset your password or secret answer.

• The postcode they ask for to help them identify your account is any that is registered to your account, either your home address or term time address.

• When requesting a new password via email you will now receive a web address in the password and secret answer reset emails (not temporary credentials).

• Keep your email up to date in your account so that you can use it to login (and to recover login details should you ever forget them).

For more information on funding from Student Finance England please visit their website: www.gov.uk/student-finance.

Student Loan Repayments

Please note when you are in the repayments system if you change your home address or name or have a period of residence abroad that exceeds three months you must notify the Student Loans Company of the change promptly or arrears may build up on your account which will need to be paid back on top of any regular payments you may be making at the same time as your tax and National Insurance.

Beware of Scam emails

Student Finance England has circulated a warning to all students who receive funding from the Student Loans Company. Scammers are targeting students around the scheduled payment dates, September, January and April, when you may receive a lot of communications from either Student Finance England or the Student Loans Company.

Scammers are contacting students by email and text message to try to obtain their bank details. If they succeed, they are then able to withdraw Student Loans Company funding from your bank account. Student Finance England has advised that they will never ask a student to confirm their bank details by email or and text message. If a student receives a suspicious message, they should report it to SLC’s Financial Crime Prevention Unit immediately by emailing FCPU_Alerts@slc.co.uk or calling the dedicated hotline on 0300 100 0059. To help to prevent scammers getting hold of your details remove your email address if it’s online or hide it on social networking sites. If you have already responded to an email and given your bank details change your bank account password immediately and contact the SLC’s Financial Crime Prevention Unit on the contact details shown above.

Please note this will not affect you if you do not receive funding for living costs from the Student Loans Company.