Student Loans Company gave wrong advice about travel grant

What happened

Miss T called the SLC twice before she accepted an offer to study abroad. On both occasions she was led to believe she would be entitled to a travel grant. But she would not have automatically been entitled to the grant because she was not in receipt of income–assessed student finance.

After Miss T had accepted the offer, and paid for the course fees and travel insurance, she received an application form for the travel grant. On receipt of the form her mother called the SLC who gave her the correct information – that Miss T would not automatically be eligible for the travel grant. After receiving the correct information Miss T decided to carry on with her plans to study abroad.

Miss T complained to the SLC and was offered £200 in compensation. She was dissatisfied with this and came to us.

What we found

We did not uphold this complaint. The SLC did not give Miss T the correct information when she called on the first two occasions. As a result of that failure, Miss T lost the opportunity to make an informed decision about whether to accept the offer to study abroad. We did not find the financial losses claimed by Miss T were a direct result of the SLC giving her wrong information. Miss T decided to proceed with the study abroad, and incur more costs, even when she had the correct information. The £200 offered by the SLC was an adequate resolution to the complaint.