Help for nursing students affected by loan overpayments READ MORE HERE: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/help-for-nursing-students-affected-by-loan-overpayments

READ MORE HERE: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/thousands-of-students-will-benefit-from-new-cadet-units-backed-by-50-million-government-plan

New students are being alerted to a [problem] where fraudsters claim to offer a "educational grant" in a bid to con them into divulging bank details. The emails typically claim to be from the university's finance department and trick the recipient into clicking on a link to an online form and entering their personal and banking details. The Student Loans Company said students were particularly vulnerable to "phishing" attempts around the main payment dates, in September, January and April. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37408373

I have been advised that i must now pay the bedroom tax because may daughter who is a student lives off campus. I cant help but feel that this is totally unfair. To tell one student your parents can keep a room at home for you because you live on campus. Then tell another student your parents cant keep a room available for you because you live off campus is totally unfair. surely a student is a student no matter where they live.

Have you just received your A-level results and are planning to start university this autumn? If so, you're likely to be one of the many students who will soon be moving into halls of residence or private rented accommodation for the first time. Moving away from home can be quite daunting, so it's useful to know what to expect before you move. Our student housing information can help you along the way: if you're thinking of moving into halls of residence if you're thinking of moving into private rented accommodation.

Hi can anyone help me with a query. I am 59, working and a housing association tenant and pay full rent, council tax etc. However, I am seriously thinking of asking for a career break for 3 years to take on a BSc degree course ( I know this sounds daft at my age but I have had to wait a long time). I have checked for student finance and can get that which is roughly £7000 and as a student will not pay council tax but I cannot get an answer about the rent and whether I can apply for housing benefit. All the websites state that unless you meet a specific criteria, a student cannot apply for housing benefit. But I am the student and the tenant?? I have been to CAB and they can't find an answer either. The only income I will have will be a very small pension of £84 pm and my student loan/grant which equates to £583 per month for first two installments and £466 for last installment, totalling £667 pm to live on. My rent is currently £468 per month. Can anyone help me with this one, I don't want to miss this opportunity but if I have to pay rent from this then it won't be possible.

Hi, Like many others, I am being aggressively pursued by HSL for an old student loan debt and getting increasingly sick of their tactics. (I have been on a very low income since 2005 - including being a student for most of the time - yet still made monthly repayments without fail since 2006, but they are still threatening to take me to court.) I have been reading the forum and it seems like I can reclaim any penalty charges on this account - is this correct? If it is, I am going to write a subject access request. Do these sound like the right kind of questions? Am I missing anything? The original amount of the loan they are chasing me for. The date this loan was originally taken out. The name and contact information of the loan company I originally entered into agreement with. The date the loan was sold to HSL. Full details – dates and amounts – of any penalty charges HSL has applied to the account. Full statements of my account from the date the original loan was taken out, detailing all credits and debits to the account. Anything else, do you think? Many help for any advice given.

Im pretty scared right now and really need some solid information. Ill try to be as concise as possible. First, my situation is as follows:

Ive started at Uni im 42 with two sons living at home in full time education. I am a tenant of South Kestecen council in Lincolnshire. I was on ESA for a back injury but ive lost that because atos wouldnt give me a second chance interview as i missed an appointment due to illness, so we are living off child benefit ,grants and my student loan and £5 a month CSA. Ive handed all of my documents into my local council to claim housing benefit and theyve calculated i have to pay £82 a week for an £83 rent !!! yet another lady who is on the SAME course and lives in the SAME town but is in a private let property, shes getting £350 housing benefit and shes only got 1 child ! how can this be so????????? its totaly unfair ive read that only my student lond and bursary from my university can be taken into account when calculating housing benefit, which y total nothing more than £6000 approx, can anyone advise me please as im worried sick and its affecting my health.

Hi all, can anyone help me please as I am feeling slightly unfairly done..... My hubby is a fulltime student and he receives students grants,loans etc. We have 3 children aged 11, 9 and 9mths. We currently receive child tax credit and have been advised that the only help we can get benefit wise (apart from housing and council tax benefit) is if I was to make a claim for jsa- as I would have to be available and looking for fulltime work I have not claimed. I do not feel I want to go back to work yet and especially not fulltime. Now this is was narks me slightly...If I was a single parent I would be entitled to income support as my child is under 5yrs old and would not have a requirement to work yet. Now, my husband is at uni fulltime so this means I am in the same 'childcare' boat as a single parent would be so how come the rules are different for me!? I don't know if what we have been advised is gospel or if in fact I would be entitled to I.Support or even Jsa without all the requirements. Does anyone know if there are exceptions/exemptions to certain things in these circumstances?

Hi, I am new to this site, so not sure about where to post my questions...hence putting it into the 'Welcome' section...I have had a very nasty experience with my landlord... i am a student, stayed with a letting agency, last year who asked for a deposit/bond of £400. now when i moved out my deposit has not been returned for 3 months, 2 weeks ago i received an email saying i will only receive back £50 of my deposit. £150 being charged for smoking fine from all 10 tenants in the property, i dont even smoke, can they do this? £150 being charged for cycle tyre marks on a small area of the wall (3ft by 4ft area), as apparently i was not authorized to store a bike inside the property (but i received no warning/notice even after a number of visits from the landloard) i hardly used my bike, and this cost is being split between 2 tenants even though there were 4 bikes in the property, and i took care not to touch the walls! £50 for cleaning the communal areas, and i moved out of the property over 2 months prior to my contract ended, and i was not present when other tenants had parties and etc. and other small things i would also like some information in regards to my contract which we agreed is going to be for minimum of 45 weeks (it says 48 weeks on the contract), but the dates written on the contract work out to only 45 weeks, but they did not agree with me and claimed they have written the dates 3 weeks prior to contract end as it gives them a warning in there system that this contract is due to end, so i had to pay rent for the extra 3 weeks.but not receiving my deposit report back which states the contract end date and this also works out to be only 45 weeks, am i able to claim back the 3 weeks extra rent? also i had many problems during my stay at the property toilet leaking for 5 months and the shower leaking through out my stay causing horrible smell in the bathroom and mosquitos (still water under the shower tray). also my heater was not working for nearly 2 weeks and they did not fix this neither provide a temporary heater during these 2 weeks after many ccalls i received a temporary heater after 2 weeks when the contractors came they just checked and put silicon on the corners (without removing the old silicon) so it came off again, and the contractors always entered my room without advance notice or my permisson. the main door to the property had electronic fob system which during the winter months stoped working and we had to wait hours outside for an engineer to come to fix this rather than the landloard making a 5 minute journey from the office to open the door for us (he did not even lend us the key whist we had this problem) i was promised inventory in my room such as tv fridge kettle etc in my room, but these did not get installed in my room until after a month of contract start, (landlord said he would have them set up for me before i move in) my shower did not work for 2 days and nothing was done about it until i spoke to the landloard if it doesn't get fixed i will call in a professional plumber and the bill will be deducted from the rent. i believe rather than deducting my deposit they should have compensated me for all the inconvenience caused to me. appologies for the rough written "essay" cant concentrate at 3AM in the morning!! hope some one can help me out any laws i could refer to or any guidence as to what u can do

Hi everyone, Hope you can shed some light on this one. Last July, my daughter thought it wise to leave the family home for a year to experience the student life. After seeing the error of her ways, she has now returned, towing with her a water bill for £1000...... I phoned Welsh Water, and they said the bill was correct. My daughter doesn't dispute she owes the money, its the others in the house that do. Five students signed the tenancy agreement back in July 2011. After a couple of months, two students left and were replaced by another two. They did not update the tenancy agreement to show the change. Basically, the new tenants reimbursed the bond to the two tenants who were leaving. From what I can gather, the water bill was never addressed monthly, it just built up. Fast forward to today. The tenancy comes to an end, all go their seperate ways. Except the water bill seems to have landed on my daughters doorstep. There are 3 names on the bill, cos Welsh Water can only get 3 on their billing???????? My daughter, and two others. And yes you guessed it, the other two on the bill are the tenants who left after two months. Now what I need to know is who is ultimately responsible for this bill? The bonds have been released by the letting agent into my daughters account. The debt has been passed to Moorcroft and are threatening more charges. I want to pay the bill out of the bonds and have done with it. After all, IT IS THEIR DEBT. However, the two tenants who are not on the tenancy agreement are denying responsibility for the bill and are demanding their bond be paid forthwith. Stating that should the bill be paid from their bonds, it would be classed as theft. Any thoughts regarding the legal position we find ourselves in. Your help in this matter is greatly appreciated. Vaz.

Hello Ladies & Gents, My son studying in Bristol University 2nd year with other fellow students, they just received a letter from the letting agency demanding a further payment of more than £750 in 7 days or they will face court and even further consequences. The letting agency already taken the initial deposit of £2000. When they moved from the flat last month, they left it clean and tidy. Walls with small scratches painted, which indicate that they are careful and considerate. On several occasions the landlord or his son or his brother (they own the letting agency) come to inspect the flat and intimidate the students and shout at them, too. My son in particular now feels very upset and distressed by this guileful and perfidious method in getting money from vulnerable people like us, especially when we are on disability benefit. Even if I want to pay, I don't have a fiver let alone to pay £150! Can anyone please advise us on how to proceed with this problem? We are not really sure what to do or how to proceed forward. Thanking you and regards.

Company responsible for scheme has taken £36.5m more than it was owed from wages The controversial company in charge of collecting student loan repayments for the Government has taken tens of millions of pounds extra from unwitting graduates. Tens of thousands of people have been advised to apply for refunds from the Student Loans Company (SLC) after it emerged that the firm had collected an additional £36.5m from them in 2010-11 alone. More than 63,000 former students carried on repaying from their salary, often for months, after they had paid off loans taken out to fund university education. The average amount overpaid was £577, although several graduates claim they paid out several thousand pounds more than they owed. The total "over-repaid" by graduates is the highest amount ever taken by the SLC, despite assurances that it had made strenuous attempts to ensure it didn't collect more than was due. Graduates overpaid by £22m in 2009-10, compared to £19m in 2008-09 and almost £16m in 2007-08. Student groups last night blamed a lack of communication between the SLC and HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) for the millions disappearing from graduates' incomes. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/thousands-of-exstudents-overpay-loans-8007767.html

I have been living with my partner in our flat for the past 6 months, this is about how long this situation has been going on. We has 4 male students that live above us that intentionaly make noise ie. slamming doors, stomping on the floor boards, dropping things on the floor, shouting, playing loud music, having parties. We involved their letting agency as they have a no noise policy, chris shorey lettings of plymouth. The students have been constantly warned about their behaviour not just by the agency but by my landlord too as he owns the flat but sublets to the agency but it really should be the agency that sort the problems out but for some reason they have been stalling on the situation therefore making the situation so that the students know they can now get away with anything as all they ever get is a verbal warning "a slap on the wrist if you will". Was going to get in contact with Environmental health but it's a little late in the day as they leave in 2 weeks or so i am told. I feel harassed by these students so in our defence i got the police involved but to be honest there isnt much they can do. The students also had their laundry room taken away from them last week as they were putting the washing machine on at unreasonable times of the night and early morning and were told "until they can be more sociable they wont be getting it back". I work full time in Horticulture and my boyfriend is a chef and the lack of sleep we are getting is affecting our jobs and i have health problems that get worse when i'm tired a stressed out. We feel alone in this and need advice, fed up with being intimidated and unsafe in our own home! Dolly78