Jenny Richards graduated from Burwell in Cambridgeshire in 2015. Now though, she’s caught up in a harrowing ordeal with the Student Loans Company (SLC) after taking up an opportunity to work as a research assistant at the University of Adelaide in Australia. Within nine months of graduating, she moved away. She was surprised by an enforcement mechanism that was implemented in April 2016 that hit hard.
The SLC has required non-compliance penalties on graduates. If they fail to leave the UK for more than 12 weeks without informing the company, they will incur these charges. Originally implemented through special Direct Agreements, this policy has harmed about 33,000 alumni, including Richards. Until then, she worked diligently to keep the SLC at bay with her income, savings, and info for Australia. Even with her care, she received a notice of intent that her interest rate was going to go up because they alleged she didn’t respond to their mailings.
Richards said that he was told in a letter that his account would have a penalty interest rate for non-compliance of RPI plus 3%. The letter alleged that was because of his non-responsiveness, but Richards was adamant he had submitted everything they required.
This has been a real effort on Richards’ part to explain her circumstances for more than a year and a half. She, her parents, and her Member of Parliament, Lucy Frazer, have persistently sought confirmation that her loan’s interest rate is not increasing due to non-compliance. Richards still has yet to hear when the additional interest charged on her total debt will be reversed. Despite her lobbying, she has yet to receive any guarantee.
She told the press then about her frustration, “I’ve written hundreds of letters and made thousands of phone calls. I still haven’t received any confirmation that they removed the interest rate or the extra debt from my total.”
The SLC requires that all borrowers alert them if they plan to live outside the U.S. for three months or longer. Make sure to let us know what you have planned! Richards thinks she played by the rules, filing the required application and summary of benefits paid in advance of the April 2016 cutoff. It became complicated when one page of her application was submitted after the rest. Even though everyone had actually mailed their forms in before the deadline, this resulted in a major snafu.
Richards was pleased that the SLC’s letter spelled out that this shouldn’t be a requirement. If you lived overseas for over three months, you need to complete the overseas section. This requirement only made her situation worse as she followed each instruction down the rabbit hole.
Jenny’s mother even traveled back to the UK to submit forms and supporting evidence in person, highlighting the family’s commitment to resolving this issue. For all of their proactivity, the SLC’s communication has been lacking.
Even more than the SLC’s radical agenda, what worries Richards is the lack of transparency surrounding all of this. She was annoyed by the dearth of pleasing answers from the company that processes enormous liabilities for new professionals. It has been humiliating beyond words for her to have to do this.
What scares me most is how opaque the SLC is. It’s a shame that even my parents—both Oxford graduates—and my MP, local education minister Lucy Frazer, can’t get answers from a company that has left thousands of young people up to their ears in debt.
In July of 2016, it appeared that might finally change when Richards got a letter from the SLC letting her know that her interest rate would be refunded. But she’s still waiting for confirmation that other debt she accumulated during this time will be cleared as well.