Thank god I finished in 97!! (Student Loans Co.)

Member Name: opaque

Product:	Student Loans Co.
Date:	03/07/00 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A godsend for basics!

Disadvantages: Still have to pay it back and you can be left wondering what your status is

Reading someone else's opinion that you can now borrow £4500 a year!
I borrowed the maximum I could each year for 3 years whilst at Aberystwyth university from 1994-97 and I ended up with a debt of about £4500.
And I didn't have a vert gregarious lifestyle, in fact I rarely drank, rarely went out!

But it is,and has been for years a necessity to get the loans and I must say that it was fairly simple to actually get the loans.

Having left, as I said in 97 the dealings I have had with the Student Loans Company have been mainly contained to sending them my finacial details each year to get my loan repayments deffered.

To get your loan repayments deferred (otherwise the money will start to be taken via the direct debits you set up when you started the loan) you need to prove that you are earning below a certain amount (which you will be informed of beforehand). This mainly means you need to find the originals of your wage slips, bank statements, tax paid on those bank details, anything that shows, in my case, that I am earning a pitance and have no managed to get myself a job despite my expensive degree!

The period of time you have to get all these doccuments always seems to be short so get those documents sent off asap when you first get the letter otherwise you may find the direct debits starting, and I have heard that they are near impossible to stop once started and you may end up paying for 1 year until the next check! (note: this is what I have heard from others in the past not from my personal experience!)

You will get these documents back in due course but you don't get a letter saying that you have had your payments deferred before that which would be a good sign to those, who like me, have a massive debt apart from their loans!

One major advantage, of course, with the loans system is that the rate of interest is so low. Of course it would be even fairer to have no interest at all but it&#
39;s better than nothing!

So just have all your documents sorted as soon as you have left uni and don't be tempted to forget about it!

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