Regulations for postgraduate research students: Section 3

Section 3: Student Finance Regulation

3.1 Introduction

3.1.1 This section applies to all students whether you are full-time, part- time, undergraduate or postgraduate.

3.1.2 In this section, the term ‘home students’ means UK students only, including ‘island’ students, such as the Isle of Man. The term ‘overseas students’ refers to students from any other country, including the EU.

3.1.3 You should read the whole of this section carefully as it contains important information.

 

3.2 Payment of tuition fees

3.2.1 You should pay your tuition fees when you enrol. You can either pay the fees yourself or provide us with evidence that your fees (in part or in full) will be paid by a sponsor. This sponsor must be one which we recognise as acceptable, for example, the Student Loan Company, your employer or your government embassy.

3.2.2 If we do not consider your proposed sponsor acceptable, you will be required to pay your fees in the first instance. When we receive payment from your sponsor, we will reimburse you directly for the fees you have paid.

3.2.3 If your bank refuses payment when we request your fees, we reserve the right to withdraw you from your course with immediate effect.

3.2.4 For home self paying students, instalments can only be paid via Recurring Card Payment (RCP) as set out below:

• For courses starting in September: 25% or 50% prior to enrolment and subsequent payments of 25% in November, December, and January, or 50% in January.
• For courses funded by Master’s Loan/Doctoral Loan: payment of a third each term in line with SFE loan disbursement.

3.2.5 For Overseas self paying Students, instalments can only be paid as set out below:

• For courses starting in September: 50% prior to enrolment and 50% by 31 January. Payment of the second 50% of the fee can be made in one lump sum or in multiple ad-hoc instalments, ensuring that the fee is cleared in full by the January deadline date.
• For courses starting in January: 50% prior to enrolment and 50% by 31 May.
• Payment of the second 50% of the fee can be made in one lump sum or in multiple ad-hoc instalments, ensuring that the fee is cleared in full by the May deadline date.
• For all other start dates, instalments follow the same 5 month pattern as above.
• Overseas students who progress to a further year of study are required to make tuition fee payments as per standard instalment terms above; that is payment of 50% of the fee at re-registration, with further payments within 5 months.
• If an overseas student has a UK bank account, the student can choose to set up Recurring Card Payments.

3.2.6 If you do not pay at least 25% of your full tuition fee or provide proof of acceptable sponsorship, you will not be permitted to enrol. If you are exceptionally allowed to enrol without immediate payment and subsequently do not pay the minimum agreed payment the university has the right to withdraw you from your course of study for failing to meet enrolment requirements. If you do not comply with our payment terms as set out above, or do not attend a checkpoint, send a visa or passport as requested by the immigration team, or with requests for payment reminders, you will not be permitted to access your account with Computing and Library Services. This means you will not have access to your University email account or other online facilities including the virtual learning environment.

3.2.7 If your access to your account with Computing and Library Services (CLS) is blocked you should contact the Student Finance office immediately. Whilst your account access remains blocked you should:

• continue to attend any timetabled sessions you may have and swipe your student campus ID card to record your attendance. If you do not have access to your timetable, you should contact your school office who will provide you with a copy of your timetable.
• continue to work towards assessment submission deadlines, however, if you are unable to submit your work or you feel this has adversely impacted your ability to submit or prepare, you may consider submitting an extension request. However, please note that you are required to provide supporting evidence as to why your circumstances led to non-fee payment for a claim to be accepted. If you miss a submission due to non-payment of fees, you will receive a 0;
• sit any scheduled exams. If you miss an exam due to non-payment of fees, you will receive a 0.

 

3.3 Settlement of outstanding tuition fees and consequences of non-payment

3.3.1 You are expected to pay your outstanding tuition fees promptly. If you are experiencing financial difficulties, you should discuss your circumstances with the Student Finance Office as soon as possible, as it may be possible to agree an instalment payment schedule.

3.3.2 If your tuition fees remain outstanding six months after the end of the month in which you enrolled, we may withdraw you from your course. For example, for students enrolling in September, the deadline is 31 March.

3.3.3 If we withdraw you, you have the right to appeal the decision.

 

3.4 Withdrawal due to non-payment appeal procedure

3.4.1 If you decide to appeal the withdrawal decision, you must submit your appeal in writing to sfo@hud.ac.uk for the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning) for taught students, or the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research, Innovation & Knowledge Exchange) for postgraduate research students to review, within 10 working days of the date of the withdrawal letter.

3.4.2 You must submit independent evidence to support your appeal. If there is a delay in obtaining the evidence, you should still submit the appeal no later than 10 working days from the date of the withdrawal letter and tell us what your evidence consists of and when you expect to provide it to us.

3.4.3 If you submit your appeal later than 10 working days after the date your withdrawal letter was sent to you, you will need to provide independent evidence to explain why you could not have submitted your appeal to us any sooner. This is in addition to the evidence required to support your appeal. If you do not send us appropriate independent evidence to allow your late appeal to be considered, your appeal will be rejected on the basis that it was submitted late. No further details of your appeal will be considered.

3.4.4 You can only appeal on the following grounds:

• There has been a procedural irregularity in the way we have processed your account; or
• You can demonstrate, with supporting evidence, that you had personal extenuating circumstances which meant you were unable to respond to requests for payment.

3.4.5 The decision of the Pro Vice-Chancellor will be final and you will be issued with a completion of procedures Letter within 20 working days from the date you submitted the appeal.

3.4.6 If your appeal is successful:

• You may be permitted to re-join your course.
• You may be required to repeat a period of study, and if so, you may be subject to repeat charges. The University reserves the right to ask for payment of fees to be made upfront if you have previously been withdrawn as a debtor.

3.4.7 If your appeal is not successful: You may wish to discuss the outcome with the Students’ Union Advice Centre who can independently guide you through the decision.

3.4.8 You may request an independent review of the decision.

3.4.9 OIA: Independent review of the withdrawal appeal decision

Our appeal decision is final and there are no further appeal stages within the University. If you wish to request an independent review of our final decision, you should contact the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OiA) within 12 months of the date of the completion of procedures letter.

 

3.5 Outstanding tuition fees

3.5.1 If your tuition fees remain outstanding, we may also:

• Refuse to re-enrol you in a subsequent academic year;
• Withhold your certificate;
• Not allow you to attend your graduation ceremony; and / or
• Refer your debt to an external debt collection agency, which may result in additional interest and collection charges being applied to your

3.5.2 If you are an overseas student with a student visa and your tuition fees remain outstanding six months after the end of the month in which you enrolled, we will report this to the Home Office. It is a breach of your visa conditions and you may be deported from the UK.

3.5.3 The above sanctions will apply if you are personally liable for your tuition fee or if your sponsor has initially agreed to pay and then reneges on the agreement. This includes cases where the sponsor informs us that they are not responsible for settling your account.

3.5.4 We will not apply these sanctions where an organisation such as the Student Loan Company, government embassy or other recognised sponsor is clearly responsible for settling your account.

 

3.6 Award of credit for students withdrawn through non-payment of fees

3.6.1 If you are withdrawn because of an outstanding debt, we will not consider you for the award of any credit you may normally have been entitled to. This applies to the credit that you would have achieved in the current academic session affected by the debt. We will normally award any credit you have achieved prior to the year in which you were withdrawn, if applicable.

 

3.7 Re-sit tuition fee charges

3.7.1 If you are required to repeat a module because you have not passed it, you will be charged the appropriate module fee. If you are required to re-sit previously failed modules on an assessment only basis, you will be charged 50% of the module fee.

3.7.2 If you are an overseas student with a student visa, you may need to resit the module(s) from outside the UK. If you are a full-time student who needs to re-sit the full academic year with attendance, we will charge the full-time tuition fee.

 

3.8 Tuition fee refunds

3.8.1 If you are required to pay tuition fees and you withdraw or interrupt your studies, for the remainder of your academic year, we will charge a proportion of the tuition fee for your course. The amount charged will depend on when you originally enrolled and when you withdraw or interrupt your studies.

For Postgraduate taught students, Postgraduate research/Doctoral students leaving in:

• First month – no charge
• Term 1 – 33.3% of fees*
• Term 2 – 66.6% of fees
• Term 3 – 100% of fees

* If you are an overseas student who has paid a non-refundable deposit and you leave within an academic year, any non-refundable deposit will be lost.

 

3.9 Ancillary charges

3.9.1 We may charge you for ancillary costs and services that are provided, in addition to your tuition fees. These services may include:

• Field trips.
• Library fines.
• Equipment lease and hire.
• Consumables (including but not limited to printing and photocopying charges).
• Bench Fees (for research students only)

3.9.2 If you do not pay these ancillary charges, we will consider this a debt to the University. As a result, we will:

• Refuse you access to the library (in the case of unpaid library fines).
• Not invite you to your graduation ceremony.
• Refer your account to an external debt collection agency until the debt has been paid in full.

 

3.10 PGR interruption of studies

3.10.1 If you are a PGR student and you interrupt your studies, please note that short term ‘in year’ interruptions will not attract a reduction in your fee liability for the relevant academic year. Any extension to end date directly linked to a short term interruption will not incur any further charge as long as the extension period directly correlates to the interruption. (Any additional research time will be charged as below).

 

3.11 Additional research time for PGRs

3.11.1 If you reach the end of your course and request additional time, you will be charged a pro-rata tuition fee based on the length of extension required as follows:

• Up to 4 months – 25% of fee.
• Up to 8 Months – 50% of fee.
• Up to 12 months – 100% of fee.

 

3.12 PGR writing-up period

3.12.1 If you reach the end of your course and request a writing-up period Doctoral students will be charged £450, Master’s students will be charged £100.

 

3.13 PGR final examination phase

3.13.1 You must remain registered with us once you have submitted your final thesis so that we can examine you and award your degree. We do not charge any fees during this phase of your registration.