Disabled Students

Back in August, I wrote about the issues that need to be addressed by disabled students who wish to attend University i.e. accessibility, access to appropriate care options etc.

On top of all these issues, it would appear that their worries are now being further complicated by the Student Loan Company (SLC).

Figures show that in addition to giving out £43m less in funds this year, they have also failed to provide the vital funding to disabled students with only one in every five receiving the appropriate funds needed for specialist equipment and assistants. Many disabled students are now struggling to cope and many see “dropping out” as a real threat. Yet it would appear that there is still tens of millions of pounds sitting unallocated some two months into term-time.

In real terms, this allocated funding means that approximately 12,000 disabled students are waiting for funds to support their learning needs as only 3,294 applications have been processed out of the 15,371 submitted. Campaigners believe it will take some 75 weeks to clear the backlog of claims.

The president of the National Union of Students, Wes Streeting, has said "This is a staggering amount of money and reveals how big the problem is. Students can't get by without that money. It's disgraceful that so many disabled students are waiting for their allowances."

Unlike previous years, the processing of applications, which are complex and need medical evidence, has been taken over by SLC and they are failing to deliver this vital funding. SLC have apologised to those students caught up in these delays and have said "We recognise that the work is more complex than general loan application processing, and so over the last two months we have doubled the size of the team working on the cases."

Unfortunately apologies will not help those disabled students struggling to cope without the specialist equipment and support they need – only real action can do that and therefore SLC need to sort this issue now and learn from their mistakes in preparation for the next academic intake.