WHAT IS STUDENT AWARD AGENCY IN SCOTLAND ? ( SAAS)
Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) is an Executive agency of the Scottish Government. It supports eligible Scottish students by paying their tuition fees, as well as offering bursaries and supplementary grants. It also assesses students applying for loans. Tuition fees outside of Scotland.
SAAS pays the tuition fees of eligible Scottish and EU students. SAAS will pay these fees regardless of a student’s financial situation., SAAS can also provide authorize loans to cover the tuition fees of Scottish students going to study elsewhere in the UK.
What kind of student loans available?
Student loans are available to help with living costs. Student loans are paid by the Student Loans Company [1] but students apply for their loan through SAAS. Any eligible student can apply for the minimum loan regardless of their income. The maximum loan is income assessed. The maximum loan that a young student can receive is £5,750, and the maximum loan for an independent student is £6750. However, if your household income is over £34,000 the maximum loan for a student is £4,750.[2]
Students normally do not have to start repaying this loan until the April after they graduate or leave their course. The Student Loans Company (SLC) expect students to pay 9% of any income they earn over £17,335 a year. This threshold normally increases every year with inflation.
You can apply for non-repayable grant?
You can apply for non-repayable grant known as bursary which is a non-repayable income-assessed grant to help students with living costs and you do not have to pay back .
A young student can receive a bursary of up to £1,750. To be eligible to receive a bursary an applicant’s family have to have a household income of no more than £33,999.
An independent student can receive a bursary of £750. To be eligible to receive the bursary an applicant’s spouse/partner must earn no more than £16,999.
Bursaries for higher education students from Scottish households with an income of up to £24,000 will increase by £125 from academic year 2015/16 – raising the maximum available bursary for young students to £1,875, and £875 for independent students. From 2016/17 the household income threshold for receiving the maximum bursary will also be raised from up to £17,000 to up to £19,000.[3]
