With the eligibility criteria about to change, it’s a good time to highlight the benefits of Advanced Learner Loans, and how they could help your learners to get the skills they need to succeed.
From August 2016, Advanced Learner Loans will be available to everyone aged 19 and over for study at Level 3 to Level 6 (they were originally only available for individuals aged 24 and over and for study at Levels 3 and 4). This opens them up to a significant number of learners and gives you more choice for delivery.
Far from being an unnecessary debt, taking on one of these loans could be a valuable investment in learners’ future success, especially if they go on to work in one of the career areas currently in growth. One of these is the Health and Social Care sector – although wages tend to be lower for jobs, it’s a sector that relies heavily on qualifications for progression, so using an Advanced Learner Loan to upskill could provide learners with vital skills they need to get on in the workplace.
Business and Administration is also a growing area. These types of roles are increasingly being recruited for in companies across all sectors, and the transferable skills that can be applied to an office environment are highly sought after at the moment. Therefore, studying Business and Administration qualifications is a really worthwhile use of an Advanced Learner Loan, and could lead to career progression from an Administrative Assistant to a more senior or managerial role in the future.
A recent survey by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and the Higher Education Academy (HEA) showed that an increasing number of students in England feel their degree – for which they’ve taken out a substantial loan, often without thinking too much about the high level of debt – does not represent good value for money. Repayment of an Advanced Learner Loan works in a similar way to a Higher Education loan, with repayments collected through PAYE or self-assessment once income is more than £21,000 a year.
This highlights that for learners who are more vocationally inclined, an Advanced Learner Loan could be a far more worthwhile loan to take on, and will very likely pay for itself in the long run.
At NCFE, we can help you to maximise your funding and use your full Advanced Learner Loan allocation through our portfolio of eligible qualifications. We have 55 qualifications approved within the catalogue across popular and growing industry areas such as Health and Social Care and Business and Administration.
For the full list and more information, visit our website
