Just a little warning about loan disbursements at your uni...

I was accepted to an MA program at London College of Communication, part of the University of the Arts London. From the fine print of UAL's financial aid FAQ's:

How many instalments will my loans come in?

Federal loans are subject to instalments based on the study period/terms of your course.  The federal loans include Stafford, Graduate PLUS and Parent PLUS.  There is NO NEGOTIATION with regards to these instalments.  The University cannot legally certify students for single instalments on the federal loans.  This is a policy of your US Department of Education which we must abide by.

Courses running from September/October to June/July will get three instalments while courses running from January to December or October to September will receive two instalments.   

How do I pay my fees in full if I’m getting my loans in instalments?

This is a conflict of policies and cannot be negotiated.  If you are fully reliant on loans to fund your studies here, you may have to take multiple loans in order to accrue enough funding in time for enrolment.   

UAL requires that tuition be paid in full before enrollment, even with acknowledgement of anticipated US federal loans. Loans are disbursed twice a year, hence the 'conflict of policies'. I think that most unis will hopefully have a better system established, but I thought I'd at least share this in case that's not the case.

Personally, I think this is a bit ridiculous considering the fact that everyone is fully aware of the 'conflict' but not willing to do anything about it. Their only suggestion is to take out additional private loans, even if the other half is coming in the next disbursement.

Goldsmiths' is my other choice and they've at least thought this through. Sorry for venting, but I do wish I'd known about this earlier and hope it might be helpful for others.

ugh, how annoying.  But I'm not surprised- when I started at my UK uni in 2006, another American student on my course ran into a huge amount of trouble because she deposited her Stafford loan cheque (in US dollars) into her UK bank account and had to wait weeks for it to clear.  Since she couldn't pay her fees on registration day, she wasn't allowed to officially register and was denied access to the library, etc in the meantime, which I thought was pretty harsh.  (I used loans too but didn't have that problem since I sent my cheque back to the US and paid my fees from my US bank account.)  Thankfully my uni let me pay my fees in 3 instalments, though so I didn't have the issue you're running into.

My federal loans were disbursed in 2 installments, but I did get an additional private student loan (meant for living expenses) which was disbursed all at once in September- that company has since stopped doing them though so probably wouldn't be an option for you

Ah, bureaucracy.

Glasgow works around the Stafford loan disbursement and they don't even charge (like normal) for an installment plan if it is a federal loan's schedule.  It stinks that UAL doesn't have a special clause for people on Stafford loans.

Thanks, springhaze and impleri. It's reassuring to know that this issue has been resolved at most unis, and I'll try to be prepared for the cheque clearance issues.

There have just been a number of administrative hiccups on UAL's end since I started my application process. This was kind of the final straw for me and I think I'm going to go with Goldsmiths' instead. Both have great programs for my field, but I was really looking forward to working with the next generation of Jimmy Choo's, Karl Lagerfeld's, and Alexander McQueen's!

I think I'm pretty spoiled because my undergrad really had it together in terms of admissions/financial aid protocol. Oh well -- I'm learning to really pay attention to the fine print!