Issue 4

AY 2017/18 – your guide to what’s changed
We take a look at some of the changes to student finance for academic year 2017/18.

Next year, tuition fees will rise for the first time since the increase to £9,000 four years ago. From August 2017, universities assessed as having high teaching standards will be able to charge fees of up to £9,250 per year.

In a statement, Jo Johnson said the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework would allow students to choose a university based on teaching quality – but a recent poll, by the Sutton Trust, found that almost half of youngsters are concerned about tuition fees.

However most students won’t have to pay any tuition fees up front. In academic year 2017/18, eligible students can get a Tuition Fee Loan from Student Finance England of up to £9,250 to cover the cost of the fees charged by their university. If they're studying at an approved course at a private university, they can get up to £6,165.

Students can also apply for a Maintenance Loan to help pay for their living costs, such as rent and bills. The amount of Maintenance Loan they can get depends on their household income and where they live and study. The maximum amount a student can get will increase by 2.8% for academic year 2017/18.

View our new Exchange article for more on repayment and how interest works.

There’s also extra help available for students with special circumstances, for example, if they have child or adult dependants, or a disability, including a long-term health condition, mental-health condition or a specific learning difficulty. The maximum amount of Dependants’ Grant and Disabled Students’ Allowances they can get will also increase by 2.8% for academic year 2017/18.

The changes affect new and continuing students who started their course on or after 1 September 2012.

You can also help reassure students that they only have to make repayments once they’ve left university or college and their income is over £21,000. The amount they repay depends on their income, not what they borrow – so they shouldn’t base their university choice on the cost of the tuition fees.

To help you further understand and advise on these changes, we’ve produced a 2017/18 resource toolkit which allows you to pick and choose what you need and download according to your individual requirements. You can access the toolkit by visiting the resources section on our dedicated practitioner site.

To help you inform students, we’ve produced a series of printed quick guides promoting high-level student finance information on everything from the 2017/18 package, to the application process and information about repayment. They’re available to order now and are ideal for sharing with prospective students and their parents at your September open days or any other discussions or planned events.

In response to feedback, we now have a new and more detailed facts and figures printed quick guide which is also available to order. Stock is limited so get your orders in quickly. The quick guides are available to order now. Last year, these were so popular that we ran out of stock early – so get your order in today before they’re all gone.

Alternatively, students can bookmark and read our interactive quick start guides – student finance content in one accessible online space – to find out what they can get.

We’ve also got a short film for students thinking about going to university or college in 2017/18.

Our film can be embedded on your websites and shared across your social media channels to reach as many students as possible and make sure they know how to sort out their student finance. We’ll be creating further films for academic year 2017/18 so bookmark our SFE Youtube channel.

And you can download our ‘Introduction to Student Finance’ presentation to use when talking to future students about student finance. It helps explain student finance and includes information about the funding available, the application process, repayment and money management.

SFE’s dedicated student finance zone on The Student Room is the official place for all student-facing information and hosts lots of helpful content on what students can get and how they get it. We also hold regular surgeries here where students can ask us their questions about anything to do with student finance. Our experts are available on the zone between 1pm and 4pm, Tuesday to Thursday every week.

We’re also available on Twitter (@SF_England) and Facebook between 10am and 4pm, Monday to Friday. Students just need to send their questions to #AskSFE – it’s that easy.

To make sure your students can find everything they need to know from applying to how much they’ll repay you can share our link button graphic on your website to take them directly to the student finance zone.

Remember to bookmark the 2017/18 resource area of our practitioner site and check back often as we upload new tools and content to support you in each phase of the academic year.

2016 All rights reserved. Created by Student Loans Company.

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