Education Maintenance Allowance

[reallymadwoman]

This seems the most appropriate place to post this, but if not I don't mind if it's moved elsewhere.

My daughter has been at college since September, and is supposed to get EMA of £30 per week. I say supposed to, as though it has always turned up eventually, her college seem to have real difficulties in getting everything processed on time - there seems to be a continuing problem with one or two tutors not submitting attendance information for example.

The upshot is that neither she nor I ever know if/when she's going to get her money, which is causing me severe budgeting problems as I never know if/when I'm going to have to pay her bus fare again, and of course I never get it back, but that's another issue.

Having checked around her friends, they all seem to have the same problems, so I'm wondering if this is a general issue or is her college just particularly bad at the admin?

It's getting to the point now where I feel I am going to have to intervene as, with the Easter holiday on top, she has now gone 6 weeks without any money. We had originally intended that she would save £5 per week to cover holidays, but that hasn't worked either so I'm ending up giving her pocket money on top of bus fare, and I just can't afford it. She also needs to save the £50 fee for materials etc that I had to pay last year, despite being on income support. Student support funds apparently only cover the course admin fee, which would otherwise have been another £50.

I realise that it doesn't sound like a huge problem in the scheme of things because she has always, at least so far, got her money eventually, but £10 a week for bus fares is quite a lot when you're on benefits and the only flexibility in the budget is food. Oh well, beans on toast for dinner for another week!

[gizmo111]

Having checked around her friends, they all seem to have the same problems, so I'm wondering if this is a general issue or is her college just particularly bad at the admin?

It seems to be a widespread problem, with no easy solution. I would complain to the college every time the payment is late as a result of their lateness in submitting attendance records, and ask them for financial support from their access to learning fund to cover the times when your daughter has no money to get to college.

[reallymadwoman]

It seems like I have to talk to the scary EMA lady at the college then. I once thought DCA people were bad, but she is truly scary! Maybe she's in the wrong job? Or maybe she's just peed off with all the complaints.

[The GodMother]

This is not a unusual problem.

My BIL is at collegeand getting ema last year he did not recieve one payment until AFTER his course was finished and this year the EMAS office has not even processed his forms and the course finishes in about 3 or 4 months.

It looks like another lump sum end of year payment for him.