If you’re thinking about withdrawing from your course, speak to your uni or college first. They’ll give you advice to help you make the best decision.

If you decide to withdraw

If you decide to withdraw after speaking to your uni or college, it’s really important you let them know as soon as possible. You should also contact us to let us know. This minimises the risk of you being overpaid your student finance.

Once your uni or college lets us know you’ve withdrawn, we’ll reassess your student finance based on the number of days you attended your course.

We’ll stop any future payments to you and your uni or college, then we’ll send you a new student finance entitlement letter. Depending on the date you withdrew, and when your uni or college let us know, you may have been overpaid.

If you’ve been overpaid

If you’ve been overpaid after withdrawing, we’ll contact you to let you know how to repay any extra student finance you got. You may need to repay this early and before you’re earning over the repayment threshold.

Repaying your student loan

You’ll be responsible for repaying your Maintenance Loan and any Tuition Fee Loan we’ve paid to your uni or college. You’ll repay these as normal unless you’ve been overpaid.

How much Tuition Fee Loan you’ll need to repay

The amount of Tuition Fee Loan you’ll need to repay will depend on the date you withdrew from your course. Your university or college will have their own fee charging policy, so you should speak to them about this. Your tuition fee is paid at the start of each term. The table shows how much of your tuition fee you’d normally have to repay depending on what date you withdraw.

Withdrawal date Percentage of tuition fees you’ll have to pay back
At the start of term 1 25%
At the start of term 2 50%
At the start of term 3 50%

If you return to university or college

If you withdrew in your first year, you should be able to get full funding to study another course. If you left your course in your second year or later, you may have to cover some or all of the cost of your tuition fees yourself if you return to study. You’ll usually still be able to get a Maintenance Loan in any self-funded years of study.

How we work this out

As a general rule, you can get a Tuition Fee Loan for the full length of your course, plus one extra year if needed. The number of years you can get funding for is usually calculated as:

Length of current course + 1 year – years of previous study

You might be able to get an extra year of tuition fee support if you withdrew because of compelling personal reasons, such as bereavement or illness.

Read more about compelling personal reasons

Published 2 October 2019 Contents