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Strange one on UK student Finance

Wanderlust91 · 2017-07-14 18:56:32

Hey guys, was wondering if anyone has experience what has happened to me below. I went to a further Education College this year and completed my course with all distinctions :). The course I want to do is in the UK, I flew over for the assessments and interviews and got a place. I applied for the Student Loan in April when…

14-07-2017 7:56pm

#1

Wanderlust91
Registered Users Posts: 55 ✭✭

Join Date: April 2016

Posts: 45

Hey guys, was wondering if anyone has experience what has happened to me below.

I went to a further Education College this year and completed my course with all distinctions . The course I want to do is in the UK, I flew over for the assessments and interviews and got a place. I applied for the Student Loan in April when the application opened. Everything went well, I was out of the country in Australia on a temporary basis a few years ago, I didn't lie on my application and put down the dates I was out of Ireland. The Student Loans European team said once I got confirmation from the Australian government stating I was out of Europe and Ireland on temporary visa and not a residential one, I would get the funding. I got this information for them and they accepted it. I could have easily said I hadn't been out of the country but I didn't wanna lie. I was to get a acceptance for my student loan this week but I had not received anything in the post.

I rang up student finance England's European team. I was told because I had stated I studied a level 5 course this year, I was deemed ineligible to receive the student loan as I had done a level 5 course this year. I explained it was only a fetac/QQI course and I had covered the fees, there were about 1100 euro I think. This baffled me as I know a lot of nursing students alongside other students do a fetac course to gain access into courses within the UK. What really baffled me was I know quite alot of Irish students heading over doing the same course as me within the University and others had their loans accepted and others who done a similar level 5 to get into the University course, they all stated they had done a level 5 course this year.

With a bit of research I rang up student fiance again, from what I gather, the person who assessed my application has transferred my QQI(fetac) level 5 award to the UK level 5 which is different to here. From the national frameworks award I can see my level 5 only transfers over to at highest, A levels in the UK. So basically the assert of my application has thought I got a UK level 5 which would make me exempt from a student loan.

They've told me to appeal it and I have express posted a letter explaining alongside a copy of the national framework qualifications.

http://www.qqi.ie/Documents/Qualifications%20can%20cross%20boundaries%20June%202017.pdf

Anyhow, wondering if anyone has experience this.
Cheers

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