Get initial loan forms

Date: February 2003

My school gave me lots of help with applying for financial support

Now I had got my university application sorted out, it was time to think about student finances. I didn't have to do much thinking though, my school helped me out with a lot of the loan stuff. Early in February I was given the forms and information I needed to apply for tuition fee support and a student loan. This information contained:

HE1 form - The first form to fill in and send of to my LEA
HE1 guidance notes - Notes on how to fill in the HE1 form
Financial support guide - a guide to the financial support available to students
Postcard - to be sent with my application and returned when my LEA received my HE1
Useful information booklet - a booklet about student support from the county council

Normally I would have to fill in the HE1 and send it back to my LEA along with the post card and a form of identification such as a passport or birth certificate. However I didn't need to do this because people from my LEA were coming in to school to check over the forms and our identification, so all I would need to do was turn up on that particular day with my completed form and passport.

Before filling out the HE1 I needed to think about whether I would apply for means tested support or not. Being under 25 and living with my parents, I was classed as a dependant student. This meant that the amount of financial support I was entitled to depended on my parents' incomes. Full fees of £1,125 a year need to be paid if your parents' combined income is above £31,231. After some quick calculations with my dad he reckoned that my parents' income would come to a bit above £30,000 so I would still have to pay around the full fee. For this reason we decided it was easiest to apply for non income-assed support. This would mean I didn't have to fill in a HE2 form and wouldn't need to get all the details about my parents' incomes in full.

After making this decision and reading through both the advice for applicants guide and the guidance notes I was ready to fill in the form.