We believe maintenance loan payments for students should not affect universal credit at £1 for every £1. Other personal loans do not affect UC. Also if you work your UC is reduced by only 55p for every £1 earned, and we don’t know why this isn’t the case for maintenance loans.

We want such loans to be disregarded completely in UC calculations. The students entitled to UC are mainly mature students going back to studying and have a family and children. We feel that the government is penalising mature adults wanting to study later in life. Instead of helping struggling students the government is making it more difficult. Mature students are wanting to build a career and working life for themselves instead of relying on benefits but we believe UC rules make it impossible for people to do this. Government should help people get in to work and study.