Universities are have to arrange emergency funds for thousands of students whose loans have failed to arrive in time for the new academic year The Universities are stepping in to provide money for living costs and to delay payments for accommodation as the backlog in despatching loan grants continues. Without this action the students affected would be unable to afford food and rent.

A spokesperson from Universities UK said that all universities had put arrangements in place to support students who faced financial difficulties which were not of their making.

It is the Student Loans Company that seems to have messed things up yet again. How many years does this cock up need to be repeated before the Student Loans Company learns the message that there is a huge influx of work in September each year?

But the Loans Company blames students for delaying their applications and say that if they got them in on time, this problem would not exist. However, they are finding it difficult to explain why students are having great difficulty getting their phone calls answered. “We’re sorry if some of our customers are having difficulties getting through”, they said.

This years, 1 million students have applied for loans and about 830,000 grants have been paid out leaving 170,000 high and dry!