Student Loans Company Avis 

I called SFE in regard to a loan repayment and I experienced amazing customer service from Damisi on the repayment team. She was extremely helpful and very efficient at her job!
I was on hold for around 10 minutes, but that is to be expected when there is only one phone number for a nationwide service. Thankyou Damisi!

**Extremely serious accusations without evidence being provided — unacceptable treatment**

It is appalling that an organisation with this level of responsibility treats people with so little respect. An allegation of document falsification can seriously damage someone’s education, financial situation and reputation. It must never be treated as a routine administrative matter.

In the case I am challenging, no clear evidence has been provided to substantiate the allegation. I want the specific documents identified, the alleged discrepancies explained, and a genuine opportunity to respond before measures with serious consequences are imposed.

I consider this approach deeply unfair and unprofessional. People deserve clear answers, competent investigations and properly explained decisions. Behind every application is a person whose future may depend on the outcome.

I am calling for a thorough review of how this case was handled and for any errors to be corrected. The organisation must also be held accountable for its actions. My confidence in its ability to handle these matters fairly has been seriously damaged.

I am extremely disappointed with the way Student Finance England has handled my tuition fee funding and the devastating consequences this has had on my education.
In August 2024, SFE officially approved £9,250 in tuition fee funding for my Adult Nursing degree at the University of Hertfordshire. I relied on this confirmation when deciding to pursue nursing rather than continuing my previous course at another institution.
However, after I had already started my degree, SFE reduced my funding to 75% and subsequently to 50%, leaving me with an outstanding tuition fee balance of £4,625.
I am now facing withdrawal from university after two academic years of studying nursing and completing extensive unpaid clinical placements.
Had SFE informed me from the beginning that I would not receive full funding, I would have made a completely different decision about my education. Instead, I trusted their official funding approval and committed my time, effort and future to becoming a nurse.
When I contacted SFE for an explanation, I received repetitive responses that failed to address my specific questions. Only after repeatedly asking did an adviser confirm that my previous university had submitted a revised tuition fee liability claim. Even then, I was not provided with the dates, calculations or supporting evidence.
I understand that funding must follow regulations, but students should be able to rely on official funding decisions when making life-changing educational commitments.
How can SFE approve full funding, allow a student to rely on that decision, and then substantially reduce the award without adequately explaining the consequences?
I am now at risk of losing my university place and seriously disrupting my progression towards becoming a registered nurse.
I have requested a formal investigation and appeal. I hope SFE takes responsibility for examining how this situation arose and provides a fair resolution before my education is irreversibly affected.
This experience has completely undermined my trust in Student Finance England.

The Student Loans Company are quite simply a disgrace. Only contactable via phone after a 35min wait, it took about 1h to get a simple letter sent. The system also said I owed 0.1 pence so can’t even get a statement released. Now expected to wait 3-5 business days and then have to call them again for 1h to get the letter sent. Can’t wait to be rid of them.

Disgraceful!
I have begged them, on multiple instances now, to flag my application as Critical Hardship. They have had my application “processing” now for four weeks! My classes have already started, and I am enrolled but they told me they won’t look at my file until the 20th October! I receive max loan, and rely on this to put down deposits and pay rent- I have now lost two flats due to student finance’s lack of care! Any time I contact them, I am told to simply wait as “other students are in a similar position”. Bullsh*t! I can’t travel to uni, and when I eventually can I’m going to be homeless! Shame on this company!

An abhorrent organisation to deal with. I have complied with SLC throughout, yet have repeatedly been treated as though I haven’t.

When my employment ended in Australia, I produced a 44-page evidence pack documenting everything: termination of employment, bank statements, travel and accommodation records, flights and evidence of my permanent departure. Since returning to the UK, I’ve supplied further bank statements, council confirmation and evidence of my UK job search. This must now be around the eighth time I’ve provided evidence.

I even had to talk an adviser through my bank statements line by line to prove I was in the UK. Yet I’ve now received another “we need more evidence” letter. Another adviser previously told me, “Well, you’ve been emailing. No wonder it hasn’t gone through.” Why provide an inbox for evidence if using it apparently causes this problem?

There appears to be absolutely no alignment between different functions within SLC. You provide evidence to one department, explain everything again to another, receive assurances that something will be corrected, then another part seemingly continues as though none of it happened.

SLC also incorrectly added over £500 in arrears to my account. I was assured these would be removed. They’re still there. I only discovered them because I happened to be regularly logging into my account to check whether SLC was processing my case.

Now, despite repeatedly cooperating, they’ve put me on a 6% non-compliance interest rate while I’m unemployed and actively looking for work. I asked whether the additional interest would be corrected once they finally processed my evidence. I was told no, although the rate itself would eventually be reduced. So interest resulting from this administrative mess apparently becomes my debt to repay and continues contributing to my balance. How is that reasonable?

To be clear, I don’t blame the individual advisers. Most have been pleasant and seemingly tried to help. The system as a whole is the disgrace.

I genuinely hope there is proper scrutiny or an audit into how SLC administers people’s accounts and, if systemic administrative errors have financially disadvantaged borrowers, that those affected are properly compensated.

You take out a student loan because you want an education and to improve your prospects. You shouldn’t feel punished for it years later, particularly when you’re unemployed, actively looking for work and doing everything asked of you.

An upsetting, exhausting experience and an absolute circus of a system.

I had to re-apply for my second year of uni. However, I am a migrant and I cannot apply online, but the website did not give me the correct form.

So I call, stay on hold for more than one hour, and when they finally pick up, I explained the situation and they emailed me a certain form to fill out.

I print it, fill it out, and send it within the same day! Obviously, after nearly 2 months they contact me saying I filled in the wrong form and will either have to fill out a different form attached to this new email, or apply online again. BUT I CANNOT APPLY ONLINE.

I am not on hold again (for more than an hour) trying to get a hold of them because they cannot tell me if I even have at least a tuition loan.

This is absolutely ridiculous and because of the poor communication I am at risk of loosing my place at university because they messed up the forms! Serious disappointed.

Dreadful on hold ages tell you something different every time

I have spent 120 in sending forms and letters as they keep asking for different things

I've now been told after sending about three applications that I need to apply for a whole new loan

Disgusting been going on months

I have been contacted numerous times regarding a refund - however it is impossible to communicate (talk, message, chat bubble, anything) with anyone - absolute joke!

I have had nothing but an appalling experience with student finance, specifically student finance england.

Recently, my application finally processed after waiting nearly 2 months.
However, student finance had placed the start of my course date wrong, leaving me with no money for the beginning of my course despite other people in my course under the same student finance (england) receiving it on the correct day. When i contacted student finance regarding this, and enquired about correcting this to the correct date they bluntly told me ‘We don’t amend dates rules are rules’.

I am a homeless 19 year old girl, and i am attempting to finally secure safe accommodation with my finance, but due to the money coming in late now, i don’t even know if they’re going to allow me to rent there. Student finance was made aware about this, and did not respond to my live chat any further besides saying there was nothing they could do despite this being an issue on their end.

Major changes need to be made.

The worst. There is 0 communication between the employees within. I stopped working, informed, was informed that i will stop making payments, but still owe arrears, for the period I was unemployed, I sent numerous documents, they lost them, then said need more info and was going on and on. Who loses digital emails and documents in 2026? Colleague would call that it's settled and to check some time later online, meantime another colleague called that I owe them, how do these people work in the same department? 0 communication between them, you need to start saying the whole story again, if you are lucky someone will follow up, very rarely. My whole experience with them was truly bad, avoid like the plague if you don't need to take a loan with them, I am amazed who runs it, and what kind of managers they have, it should be an ideal place to work, as almost no one does the job right, and simply they don't careless. Very frustrating to deal with them.

Echoing every single other student who has ever had to interact with this wet wipe of a company - money grabbing pigs <3

The SLC does not automatically refund overpayments at the end of paying off your loan and makes no attempt to contact you to arrange a refund. This is reprehensible behaviour so will be awarding 1 star.

I put 1 star because it wouldn't let me leave minus 100 stars. Out of the 9 years yes 9 years I have been trying to contact these simpltons I have managed to speak to 1 person about a year ago who was extremely rude refused point blank to help me because she said that I am not who I am, and hung up on me. I have just spent another hour trying to get through on the phone 2 days ago I spent a day trying to log in online.

I am a foreign national who lived in United Kingdom.
You cave been calling me for 6 years in a row to provide my work statement.
Extremely authoritarian approach to ask for money by a private asset management company sincerely I doubt whether this is managed by a public organization.
Overseas thresholds for postgraduate loans are ridiculous taking into consideration the net income-cost of living in the country you live.
It is absurd how the interest rate keeps going up.
Shameful.

SLC is actively refusing to acknowledge my complaints or provide reference numbers, breaking their own 5-day service charter.I submitted three separate formal complaints on 24th July. Since then, they have been completely ignored. When I call, advisors refuse to log the complaints properly or issue reference numbers, creating a deliberate deadlock.This total administrative failure is causing severe distress.

I updated my employment details about 5 times. I sent them the exact employment form and payslips they requested. They sent me an email saying that they'd review the provided evidence and come back with me. This was every time after I re-sent the form and waited another month to hear back from them. Instead I keep getting letters and phonecalls about not being compliant and in arrears. They phoned my mum three times in a single day. This has been going on for 6 months. I am seriously considering cutting contact with them, blocking their numbers and never contacting them ever again. An attrocity of an organisation. Rotten to the core.

Laughable service not surprised by the 1star. Cant login online cant speak to anyone by phone one big automated loop.
Comical - emails are met with generic copy and paste irrelevant jargon

Long delays to contact by phone and often get cut off. Inability of staff to evaluate basic info. Seek to recover payments, when I am clearly below the threshold to pay. Overseas payments team are wholly incompetent ...... Need I go on?

My daughter’s daughter’s name was changed by deed poll when she was young to include her mother’s surname. This caused some issue verifying her National Insurance number when the Student Loan Company (SLC) tried to verify it with the DWP. The SLC sent a letter asking for documentation and I called to check exactly what documentation would be acceptable. The call handler kept saying ‘ok so you want to change the name on her application’ and I kept saying ‘no her application is in her current correct name’ and then she said you need to write to Scotland to change the name?! She kept putting me on hold to talk to her ‘superiors’ but as she couldn’t grasp what I was quite clearly explaining, the superiors kept giving her the wrong advice as the handler was able to explain what my query was. I’ll just have to guess what documents and probably have a back and forth letter conversation which pray doesn’t delay the application.