The Assembly Learning Grants and Loans (Higher Education) (Wales) Regulations 2007

Regulation 52

SCHEDULE 4 COLLEGE FEE LOANS

Availability of college fee loans

1.  A person qualifies for a college fee loan in connection with his or her attendance on a qualifying course in accordance with this Schedule.

2.  A person qualifies for a college fee loan if he or she meets the following conditions—

(a) he or she is an eligible student who is not excluded from qualifying by paragraph 3;

(b) he or she has an honours degree from an institution in the United Kingdom;

(c) he or she is taking a qualifying course which he or she—

(i) starts on or after 1 September 2006 and on which he or she is continuing after 31 August 2007; or

(ii) starts on or after 1 September 2007;

(d) he or she is a member of a college or a permanent private hall of the University of Oxford or a member of a college of the University of Cambridge;

(e) he or she is under the age of 60 on the first day of the first academic year of the qualifying course; and

(f) none of the circumstances in regulation 4(3) apply to him or her.

3.  An eligible student who falls within paragraph 9 of Part 2 of Schedule 1 does not qualify for a college fee loan under these Regulations if he or she is ordinarily resident in England, Scotland or Northern Ireland.

4.  Where one of the events listed in paragraph 5 occurs in the course of an academic year—

(a) a student may qualify for a college fee loan in accordance with this Schedule in respect of that academic year provided that the relevant event occurred within the first three months of the academic year; and

(b) a college fee loan is not available in respect of any academic year beginning before the academic year in which the relevant event occurred.

5.  The events are—

(a) the student, his or her spouse, his or her civil partner or his or her parent is recognised as a refugee or becomes a person with leave to enter or remain;

(b) a state accedes to the European Community where the student is a national of that state or is the family member (as defined in Part 1 of Schedule 1) of a national of that state;

(c) the student becomes a family member (as defined in Part 1 of Schedule 1) of an EC national;

(d) the student acquires a right of permanent residence;

(e) the student becomes a person described in paragraph 6(1)(a) of Schedule 1;

(f) the student becomes the child of a Swiss national.

6.  A college fee loan is available in respect of each standard academic year of the qualifying course and in respect of one academic year of the qualifying course that is not a standard academic year.

7.  Where a qualifying student is allowed to study the content of one standard academic year of the qualifying course over two or more academic years, for the purpose of determining whether the student qualifies for a college fee loan for those years, the first of such years of study is to be treated as a standard academic year and the following years of that kind are to be treated as academic years that are not standard academic years.

8.  In this Schedule “standard academic year” (“blwyddyn academaidd safonol”) means an academic year of the qualifying course that would be taken by a person who does not repeat any part of the course and who enters the course at the same point as the qualifying student.

Amount of the college fee loan

9.—(1) The amount of the college fee loan in respect of an academic year of a qualifying course must not exceed the amount equal to the college fees payable by the student to his or her college or permanent private hall in connection with that year.

(2) Where a qualifying student has applied for a college fee loan of less than the maximum amount available in relation to the academic year, he or she may apply to borrow an additional amount which, when added to the amount already applied for, does not exceed the maximum amount available.

Transfers

10.  Despite regulation 8, where a qualifying student transfers from one qualifying course to another qualifying course—

(a) the National Assembly must transfer the student’s status as a qualifying student to the other course on the request of the student unless the period of eligibility has terminated;

(b) if the student transfers before the end of the academic year after applying for a college fee loan, the amount applied for is paid to the relevant college or permanent private hall in respect of the qualifying course to which the student transfers provided that the conditions in paragraph 11 are met and he or she cannot qualify for another college fee loan in respect of that academic year;

(c) if the student transfers after the college fee loan is paid and before the end of the academic year, he or she cannot apply for another college fee loan in connection with the academic year of the qualifying course to which he or she transfers.

Payment

11.—(1) The National Assembly must pay the college fee loan for which a qualifying student qualifies to the college or permanent private hall to which the student is liable to make payment.

(2) The National Assembly must pay the college fee loan in a single lump sum.

(3) The National Assembly must not pay the college fee loan before—

(a) it has received a valid request for payment from the college or permanent private hall; and

(b) a period of three months beginning with the first day of the academic year has expired.

(4) A college or permanent private hall is required to send confirmation of attendance to the National Assembly in such form as the Assembly may require and the National Assembly must not pay the college fee loan in respect of the academic year until it has received an attendance confirmation from the relevant college or private hall unless it determines that owing to exceptional circumstances, it would be appropriate to make a payment without receiving an attendance confirmation. In this paragraph “attendance confirmation” has the same meaning as in regulation 53(20).

(5) The National Assembly must not make a payment of college fee loan in respect of a qualifying course if—

(a) before the expiry of a period of three months beginning with the first day of the academic year the qualifying student ceases to attend the course; and

(b) the college or permanent private hall has determined or agreed that the student will not commence attending again during the academic year in respect of which the college fees are payable or at all.

Overpayment

12.  Any overpayment of college fee loan is recoverable by the National Assembly from the college or permanent private hall.