Going back to university, or repeating a year, changes what you can borrow
The Student Loans Company has refreshed its guidance on repeating a year or returning to study after a previous course. The rule that catches people: funding is based on the length of your course plus one extra year, minus years already studied, so a repeated year usually comes out of that allowance and a second attempt at a first year can leave you self-funding the final one. Ask before you agree to repeat. Student finance explained covers entitlement.
Student Loans Company, 19 January
The part of the application your parents have to complete
Updated guidance sets out the three steps a parent or partner must take to support a student finance application by confirming household income. Applications stall every year on this step, because the student cannot supply the information and the deadline for full assessment passes quietly. If your maintenance loan depends on a household income figure, chase the person who has to file it.
Student Loans Company, 19 January
The case against the skills revolution
An emeritus professor argues that reshaping universities around employer-defined skills mistakes what a degree is for, and that the counter-argument — education as the formation of judgement rather than the delivery of competencies — has gone unmade for a decade. It is the intellectual case behind the subjects currently being closed for poor graduate outcomes.