Student Loans Company Reviews 

Im glad I read these reviews as I was thinking it was personal, what an absolute nightmare. This service is a joke. Agents provide misleading advice, evidence submitted is never surfice more is always required. Call times are beyond belief. 6 years of being rejected for maintainance loans and still no further forward. The customer service and run around they give impacts your ability to study to such an extent I nearly had to drop out ar year 5 due to health and financial issues still advised my evidence and forms were incorrect even though they sent them to me and request I had them filled in by GP and returned, misleading guidance , round in circles year after year. True students can't get support or even adequate services whilst organised criminals milk this system by using agents to make claims for fraudulent applications. Parliament are aware snd its been reported in the news and yet it continues ! The whole system is a corrupt shambles and is not at all fit for purpose

So, although I do agree Student Finance’s communication is shocking, after today’s call with Linda, I feel a lot of issues I’ve been having are finally being resolved. I explained my rather complex situation with the University and Student Finance and she was able to come to a conclusion on what I need to do next, and how to resolve an issue of being overplayed. She was more than helpful. So, although my situation should’ve been resolved much sooner by Student Finance, Linda was fantastic and I solely wish that every employee would be as superb.

My wife is applying for a teaching education to become a teacher for PGCE primary schools. We were under the impression that UK need and wants UK teachers so we moved from Norway to UK, believing that UK would support us and help us especially given what our true intentions are.

It's been nothing but an absolute nightmare and I'm getting the impression that we're being scammed (as in they've promised my wife support in terms of covering tuition fees and giving her maintenance loan). Both me and my wife have been on several phone calls with student finance and each time it sounds like they're making random excuses to stall my wife receiving her student tuition payment and maintenance loan. Now because of this, we're in huge debt after spending our entire savings AND we have 2 children whereas one of them are attending nursery and because of the delays from student finance, we can't even get the child funding grant which forces us to pay the full price for our child's nursery fees which is over £1000.

We've been here for over a month now and I've been trying to support her ever since we've arrived but now my savings are being quickly depleted and we're at risk of going financial bankrupt.

Student finance claims they record calls, and so have I on every call I've had with them. Thanks to the records I've made lately they've been nothing but contradicting and spewing lies. My wife has given consent to share over on the phone at least 2 times but latest they claim she needs to be physically present. She's given every evidence they've been requesting, even as far as writing handwritten letters for her proof of address that has to be sent physically and not digitally. They've told us that "this" is the last of their requests, however whenever she sends in the exact requirements, they come with NEW requests.
Honestly this is a horrendous experience and it's shocking that this is from a governmental website.

Personally I've had my share of bad experience with office people from NAV (Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration) and UDI (The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration), however I've never experienced as bad as student loans company. This is as bad as scammers I've encountered when I've tried to purchase used laptops or mobile phones from marked places such as Facebook market.

At this rate, I think we'll be forced to move back to Norway and leave UK for good (my wife is british and raised in London). I personally wanted to give it a chance, given how UK wants to "copy" Norway AND the fact they need teachers but I think we've overstayed our welcome.

My advice would be to not even bother with these guys as clearly I can see they've got tons of other terrible reviews and they've done nothing to improve their service. Go study in another country and hopefully they'll provide better support than Student finance. I know personally Norway's service (statens lånekasse) are WAY better and more professional than this from my own experience and my network who's been using them.

Really poor customer service. Send threatening letters but only way to contact them is by calling them during working hours. I previously asked for an email address and advised to contact me via email as calling me during my working hours is not going to get them anywhere. When I call them outside my working hours the lines are always closed. It infuriates me that I have to go through 50 options to select only for them to tell me the lines are closed. Why not say it as soon as someone calls? Tried to check what I need to pay them online. It says the site is not secure or doesn't exist. This was a link on their website so not sure what is going on there. I live abroad so calling them is not only time but also quite a bit of money. Called just now during my working hours and the cue is 30+ min for a line I have to pay for. Ridiculous. Please contact me via email as we are not getting anywhere.

Shockingly hopeless. Nobody knows what’s going on with the important personal documents you send them. Everybody you speak to will have a different excuse for their rubbish system. You send them all the documents they want by special delivery, they are unable to apply them to your application then ask you to send the documents you already sent and put you to the bottom of the 4-6 wait queue again. I absolutely do not trust them and have no confidence in them what so ever. Who knows if I will ever get my original personal documents back. No one takes any responsibility for anything. I am in debt so that I can start my course because they have mishandled my application and I have no idea if I am just going to keep going round the same loop whilst my personal document have been sent to the wrong department with the wrong description. They absolutely could not care less. The stress and anxiety they are causing students and parents is hideous

Abysmal .dont oay people on time . Lie and try and blame universities for it . When it isnt their fault . They need shutting down .

Wish these people would fxxk off and stop sending me stupid random emails I've now blocked them they are perfetic

Firstly, why did i just receive an email from Student Loans Company at nearly midnight!? the email is incorrect about my status of employment. I have responded to that email.

Secondly, i had emails before that about updating my employment status - yet when i log into the account, i couldn't see where the section was to inform the status - i had emailed back to the email i received about it, and await response.

Thirdly, and this disappoints me to have to do this as obviously the purpose of the Student Loans Company was to ensure that those few who had talents to go on in life to higher education but didn't have the financial support to do so would have this made available - when i was younger (in 2007) i had particularly unusual circumstances that didn't fit the typical 'tick boxes' and thus i had approval for additional support as well as a portion of my loan as a bursary i wouldn't need to pay on. I was also told before i filled out the form, and long afterwards, that 1) i wouldn't be paying anything back onto the student loan till i had a certain amount of income from a work salary (the Student Loan Company kept true to that) and that 2) after a certain amount of time, regardless of how much or not had been paid, the loan would be waived, and finally 3) i was also told the loan was free from interest.

I really don't want to have to leave a partially negative review, but a review must be left in order to see a point for improval, but i certainly didn't expect to see just how bad it was on this review page.

I’m not really sure how but since I went to uni 10 years ago they have actually managed to get even more incompetent. But yeah we will pay 6.5% interest for you to act like dumb frogs. Also waited almost an hour to be told she couldn’t discuss my own child’s account with me and now asking him to phone again and be told they can’t do anything. Really just hopelessly crap.

I’ve never experienced a company never mind a place where people are supposed to receive fees for education, be extremely poor.

It’s shocking and I have decided not to pursue my studies in the United Kingdom over this.
After applying for SFE from Ireland since July, I had to ring up multiple times + speak with multiple “chatbots”. The funny part is that they even asked for my passport to verify why I would need a maintenance loan, even though they repeatedly say on their automated voice over for “online uploads”. Let’s just say thank God I did not send my passport to them.

Bear in mind every time I’m being placed on hold for 30 minutes and longer.
Eventually get through after dialling 10 minutes after they open. Been placed on the call for 1hr 4m! The representative was kind however this is shocking. I had to hang up mid call because I was late for work.

I’m supposed to start on the 23rd of September 2024 at Birmingham. Looking very unlikely now as I’ve received a letter after all that saying I won’t be receiving SFE.

Making it extremely difficult asking of share codes, EU settlement etc. I’m from Ireland for goodness sakes what’s the need for all this?

I do believe the English government need to look into this as soon as possible. It seems they are understaffed, undertrained, no qualified representatives on the line, 0 courtesy. I will say a pray about this not just for myself but for everybody considering studying in the UK.

Disgraceful to say the least

Anyone else is suffering the fake incompetence, hypocrisy, abuse and neglect of this racist people who takes months if ever to put a sharing code to check pre settle and settle status and do their job? The fact that is a GOV department says everything about England how they really are. Nearly all at the very least.

It takes forever to get on the phone to this company, and half of the staff hang up as soon a s they answer the call. This results in so much wasted time, waiting on hold!

such a terrible company, told me wait time was 30 mins and i waited an hour only for the agent to act like he couldnt hear me then hang up

I’m deeply disappointed as I’ve managed to speak to someone in the past! An amount has been paid to them which is too much and now I’m underpaid from my work place, which doesn’t make sense! Despite me trying to call student loans I’ve been through the security and verification and the line goes dead, so no one answers the phone! This is not good at all as I’m at a loss of £43 and they already get £19 every week from my salary which is £76 per month. With everything being so expensive with the cost of living it’s a joke honestly! And I was told ages ago that this loan really will be scraped when I was in my 40’s and I’m already in my mid 40’s. And I don’t know when I will be able to pay the full amount back. It’s pathetic. I studied for 3 years over 20 years ago and never earnt enough salary wise and had just missed the student grant unfortunately and it was still a struggle for me to get through my education and I was working to manage.

I'd think very carefully before using these. I took out a student loan albeit not a large amount, I had no issues applying or getting the funding however, when reaching a salary triggering the payback all was still well until I received notification of ending payments and cancelling a dd to avoid overpayment. The repayments were taken directly from my salary and after phoning I was told I would not need to take any action as once repayments were complete the deductions from my wage would cease. This is where the problem started after notification I had repaid my sl in full, checking my next wage slips to find out more deductions had been taken I called up and issues a refund no problem, I accepted this as a mistake and they assured me a stop notification had been issues to my EMPLOYER and no further payments would be taken. Roll on 4 months and each month a refund being requested these people continue to deduct my salary, having to phone twice a month to reclaim due to my account being 'dormant' and requiring them time to start ANOTHER refund process. I have called again today, my employer has not received any documentation, and I was told today that the stop notification only goes to HMRC and they will re-issue this. I must now wait until Friday due to my 'dormant' account before I can request a refund AGAIN. This is infuriating and they do not seem to care. I should not have to request my money back every month when I owe them nothing.

THEY DON'T CARE,10 calls over 2 weeks and hours lost on the phone for something that shouldn't take more than 5 minutes ,and still couldn't get what i need.
It's an insulte to all the people that call and try and get some help with anything .

They are the reason I left my studies in my 2nd year of uni. I understood that dealing with them for tens of years after graduation is not worth it.

Recevied a letter in Jan saying I was nearing the end of my loan and to change to dd as then I wouldnt over pay. Set up the dd and got confirmation and was told could take 3 months to chnage over. 3rd month comes around payment was taken from my salary and then dd was due to be taken so cancelled the dd. Rang SLC was told that payment would continue to be taken from salary and when last payment had been done to call. Made my last salary repayment from my July pay. Called to pay the last bit of interest which was £1.39 today. Was told that the stop notice would be issued but another month would be taken and I could ask for a refund which will take 28 days. How can any company be so useless why does it take months for them to do anything. If I owed them and stopped paying they would be the first to be calling and sending letters but it's fine for them to take my money after my balance is at 0. I look forward to fighting for my refund

I spent an hour on hold trying to make repayment, got through to someone who spent about 5-10 minutes making me pass security checks before hanging up the call as soon as it hit 5:30.. Am currently on hold again for 25 minutes & counting.

This company terrifies me. They consistently get very basic things wrong and always ask if I want to make early repayments (no, I don't).

- I have received over 30 paper copies of my 2017/2018 maintenance loan. They had to put a block on my account as they couldn't fix the bug in the system to stop sending me letters.

- I called in January this year to ask how repayments work if you live overseas and the interest rates. The lady on the phone said she was really sorry but she had no idea and that I should call back to get a 'better' person who may know more information. She was really kind but it was a waste of time. I called back and got somebody else who was able to help but they also mentioned they were reading from the website and weren't 100% sure the info they were giving to me was correct.

- It took them over 2 months to set up my direct debit for my overseas repayments. Their staff kept getting it wrong each time (I don't know how, it is such a simple task), and I received some angry letters telling me I hadn't paid. Overall, I have spent around 1 working day on phone calls with them trying to solve it. I feel sorry for some of their staff who have told me they don't know what they're doing. The SLC finally send me a 50GBP apology after I had sent them a thorough complaint email documenting each occasion I had attempted to get my DD set up (which you cannot do online) and how poorly it was handled...

- Today, something simple: I needed to update my bank details for my direct debit. It's not possible to do so online so I had to call and told them at the beginning I needed to update my DD details. After 10 minutes and 43 seconds of confirming my personal details are up to date, the guy tells me the system is down and DD details cannot be updated. He then proceeded to go through every aspect of my finances to see if I could repay something back early (cheeky and irrelevant to the call) - I wonder if they get any sales bonus for doing this. He told me I should call back next week to see if their system is back up and running to update my details - I am not looking forward to reliving this experience every time. He was really condescending and went at the pace of a snail. I had to tell him I had to go and thanked him for his help but he wanted to continue to chat...