[JoshBB]

https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/overview

I was just reading over this to get an idea of what can be expected with the whole tuition fee grants, maintenance loans/grants etc, and I have to say I am very confused.

Multiple sources are telling me different things about the tories' planned changes - some claiming that all maintenance grants are now scrapped for a bigger loan, others saying there will be a mixture of the two, and others just random nonsense.

I probably am thinking, as always, way too far in advance but it is always good to plan ahead I guess. I don't know how many years Sixth form is, because I've heard from some that there is a Year 12 and a Year 13, and some that it is only the year 12. So dependent on that, I would starting University in 2018 or 2019.

Now, I don't know which grants and loans would be available at that time and which I would be eligible to claim. I'm assuming that I would be classified as lower income due to only having one working parent who is an NHS nurse (low paying, around £7.50 an hour I think), and I would be wanting to live independently so perhaps my parents' income would not even come into it. I would be happy to work perhaps 15-20 hours part-time to suppliment these grants, and I would more than likely have to with the way this governments austerity agenda has been going.

Assuming that the 18 year old's minimum wage is the same then as it is now, I would be earning between £76.95 and £102.60 a week, which probably would count as low-income. Obviously I know that is fairly small working hours but at the same time I'd be studying so I would want to still have some spare time.

I'm hoping someone can make sense of this almost nonsensical post? I've not been having good sleep recently so blame that for my poor grammar and possibly missing words.

Any answers to what loans/grants would be available, and the whole "how many years is sixth form?" question would be seriously appreciated and would make things much simpler to plan out in my head. Thank you.

[Jack_]

You do two years of Sixth Form, Year 12 and 13. First year AS, second year A2 which makes up your two parts of three full A Levels. That's the standard anyway. I did three years though and some people do extra for a variety and/or combination of reasons; poor grades/not ready for uni/not sure what they want to do/want to get another qualification, but you'll mainly do two years and then progress to uni.

As for the rest, I honestly really wouldn't bother thinking about it until you get to Sixth Form which is when they'll start helping you with all of this anyway, from fees to student finance to UCAS, everything. Concentrate on what you want to do at GCSE leading into your A Levels and then when you reach that stage start looking at the next level of your education which is university. One step at a time, too much changes year by year to plan so far in advance in my honest opinion. And if you're in Y9? I think then you've got four years to wait until uni by which point after four budgets who knows what this government will have done to the education system