FINANCINGYOUR DEGREESTUDIES

One of the biggest worries for students heading offtouniversityismoney.You need to finance your education and also ensureyou have enough money to live on.

Currently,universities in England, Wales, Scotland and NorthernIreland can charge up to £9,250 ayear for tuition to a student living in England.

This comes after anew awards scheme was launched by the Government to monitor and assess the quality of teaching in England’suniversities. They have to meet certain criteria to receive aTeaching Excellence Framework (TEF) awardand those that do areable to increase their fees in line with inflation.

Tuition fee loans areavailable as well as maintenance loans to help with living costs. Tuitionfee loans arepaid directly to the university.Interest is charged on the loan from the day you take it out.

Maintenance loans can be applied for at the same time, lending you money at the start of each term and arere-paid in the same way as tuition fee loans.

How much you receive depends on your household income and other factors such as whereyou study,how long for and whereyou aregoing to be living

When you arestudying, the interest on your loan is the UK Retail Price Index (RPI) plus three per cent. After you graduate, the rate depends on how much you earn. Youwillnot have to start paying your loans back until you areearning above acertain threshold.

The quickest and easiest way to apply is online at www.gov.uk/studentfinance. It’simportant to apply as soon as possible so your funding is in place for starting your course.

Additional financial support is available for students on alow income, students with children or dependent adults, disabled students, medical, social work and teacher training students and students studying abroad.

As soon as you have an offer for a place through UCAS, you can talk to the banks about opening an account. The advantage of this is that student bank accounts normally have an interest-free overdraft facility which is useful if you accidentally overspend. This will usually be activated once your first instalment of loan goes in.

Thereare websites that will allow you to comparethe different student bank accounts on offer as thereare often other perks such as a16-25 Railcard.

Make suretotake one or two forms of photo ID such as apassport or driver’s licence along to the bank along with proof of address, such as abank statement, and your UCAS offer letter