Oxford students will start receiving London loan rates

Student Finance England have announced that all students attending Oxford Brookes and Oxford University will receive the higher London loan rates from September 2016.

Students in Oxford will get a minimum of a £7,465 Maintenance Loan.

You will all receive emails today, April 1st, to fully explain how this will affect you and your loan personally.

This will be your new minimum loan

Oxford students are looking at around a £3,000 increase in their loan from next year which will be helping everyone out a lot more, especially if you are part of the group of students on minimum loan but receiving no financial aid from your parents.

After years of being forced to slum it with sky high rents and pints costing over £5, just like our mates in London, but still receiving the lower level of loans that students in places like Preston get, it seems SFE have finally woken up and realised how expensive Oxford is.

Along with the planned changes happening to the maintenance grant and loans this is looking to give all us Oxford students the little boost we need to cover our rent and food shopping for once.

SFE confirmed that all students have to do is log in to the website to re-apply for finance as normal but there will now be an option for “living and studying in London or Oxford.”

While this is great news for some, there are a lot of disgruntled third years.

English third year Ben said: “I don’t understand why this is coming into place now. Today I had to live here for three years with not enough loan to cover the cost of living in halls. It’s great for first and second years, but for people leaving it is really annoying and should have been implemented way earlier.”

Stacy, a Sports Science third year said: “Student Finance should have always based the amount they give out, on the cost of living in that area. Our halls are more expensive than some places in London and they get more money”.