SFE Assessing Eligibility Guidance 2013/14 - Practitioners - Student ...

2013/14 HE Student Finance
Assessing Eligibility Guidance
There may be certain circumstances where a student wishes to
enrol on a stand alone, 1 year „top up‟ course. Fee support should
be calculated in accordance with regulation 21. The top up course
should be treated as a 3 year course to allow these students to
receive support to top up to an honours degree.
PREVIOUS STUDY
159. The general principle is that eligible students can have tuition fee
support for the standard length of their HE course plus an additional
year if needed. The number of years support available for their
current course will, however, generally be reduced if the student has
studied on a previous HE course. Students who commence study in
the 2013/14 academic year who have studied on a previous full-time,
compressed degree, distance learning or initial teacher training
course at a publicly funded UK or overseas institution where a
qualification was not achieved, will have the number of years of
support available to them reduced by the number of years of
previous study.
Previous part-time study which did not lead to a qualification and
self-funded study at a private institution which did not lead to a
qualification are not taken into account for previous study
purposes. Students who commenced a new period of study prior to
2009/10 and do not have a UK Honours Degree only have the
years of study on any previous full-time (or part-time ITT) courses
at publicly funded UK institutions taken into account.
Where previous study was undertaken but no qualification attained
then regulation 21 should always be used to assess further
entitlement for fee support and Maintenance Grant / Special
Support Grant.
The previous study rules apply to fee loans and the Maintenance
Grant / Special Support Grant of £3,354 („2012 cohort‟ students) or
£3,080 (all other current system students), and to the fee grant and
£1,000 Higher Education grant and to any fee contribution loan
taken out by old system students to cover the balance of their fee
contribution. The rules do not apply to supplementary grants such
as the Disabled Students' Allowances or Childcare Grants.
Definition of a previous course
160. Regulation 12 sets out what is a previous course for the purposes of
Part 4 of the Regulations (tuition fee support). Generally a course is
a “previous course” if:
(a) the current course began before 1 st September 2009, and
paragraph (d) does not apply, any full-time higher education
course, part-time course for the initial training of teachers or a
specifically designated course which the student attended or, in the
case of a compressed degree course or a designated distance
learning course, undertook before the current course and which
meets one or both of the conditions below:
(i)
the course was provided by an institution in the United
Kingdom which was publicly funded for some or all of the
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