Student Awards Agency for Scotland

The Student Awards Agency for Scotland (SAAS) is an Executive agency of the Scottish Government. It pays the tuition fees of eligible Scottish higher education students, bursaries and supplementary grants. It also assesses students applying for loans. The Agency administers the Individual Learning Accounts Scotland scheme (ILA's) in partnership with Skills Development Scotland (SDS).

Services provided

SAAS provides many vital services to Scottish students. Some of the most important are:

Online Services

The SAAS website [1] contains all the information students need about the support available to them and how to apply for it. Students can use the site's calculator to work out how much they may get and apply online.

Tuition fees

SAAS pays the tuition fees of eligible Scottish and EU students. SAAS will pay these fees regardless of a student's financial situation.

Fee Loans

SAAS can authorise loans to hover the tuition fees of Scottish students going to study elsewhere in the UK.

Student Loans

Student loans are subsidised by the Government. Loans are paid by the Student Loans Company but students apply through SAAS. Everyone can apply for the minimum loan (£605), irrespective of their income. The maximum loan is £4,625, however this is income assessed and the family would need to make less than £20,645 a year. An applicant living at home will receive less than if they were to stay in University accommodation.

Students only start repaying their loans after they have left their courses and started earning. They pay 9% of any income over £15,000.

Bursary

The Bursary is a non-repayable income assessed grant of up to £2640. To be eligible to receive a bursary, an applicant’s family have to have a household income of no more than £34,195.

Graduate Endowment

The Graduate Endowment was a fixed amount that graduates had to pay after completing their degree successfully. Students needed to pay the Graduate Endowment to allow continued funding of future students, as this money was ring fenced to allow payment of tuition fees and the Young Student's Bursary, Student Outside Scotland Bursary, the Disabled Students Allowance and all of the other supplementary grants, such as Travel Expenses.

Some students did not need to pay the graduate endowment. They included, but were not limited to, students who have received disabled student allowance and those studying specified courses.

Repayment of the endowment is by the same method as described above for loans, i.e. administered by the Student Loans Company.

Following a sustained campaign by NUS Scotland, Coalition of Higher Education Students in Scotland, the Scottish Young Greens, Scottish Socialist Youth and the Federation of Student Nationalists, the Scottish Government announced plans to scrap the graduate endowment for all current and future students in June 2007. The Graduate Endowment Abolition (Scotland) Bill was introduced to the Scottish Parliament by Executive minister Fiona Hyslop on 22 October 2007. On the 23 January 2008, the Bill passed stage two of the legislative procedure and on 28 February 2008 passed stage three with only the formality of Royal Assent to come, however this decision led to SAAS being asked by Ministers to call in all outstanding Graduate Endowment, including those on post-graduate courses who had previously deferred it. After pressure in the Scottish Parliament Ministers reversed this decision forcing SAAS to cancel any loan agreements made with students repaying the GE while new arrangements were made to allow them to defer payment again.

See also

• Education in Scotland

External links

• SAAS Official site
• Scottish Parliament Research Paper - Graduate Endowments. 2000
• Scottish Parliament Research Paper - Graduate Endowments (2nd Version: redrafted). 2001
• The Education (Graduate Endowment and Student Support) (Scotland) Act 2001