Uni accidentally withdraws second year after he changes course

Leeds University managed to wipe a student off their system despite him attending all year.

Second year pharmacologist Andru Lawson was told by the uni that his student status was “withdrawn”.

The error was first noticed after the financial support team contacted him saying that he would no longer be able to receive payment due to him being “temporarily withdrawn” from the university.

He also found his student ID didn’t exist after trying to check his timetable.

Andru described how this isn’t the first time the university has messed up. He said: “I transferred courses at the start of the year and the uni messed it all up – because I went from a non-fee paying course to one which charges fees.

“So the University forgot to tell Student Finance that I was now paying fees, so they didn’t pay the university any money. But then I got an e-mail from the university telling me I owe them £9,000.

“So after ringing student finance who told me  the uni had told them I wasn’t paying fees, I then rang uni who were like ‘Oh, yeah we did, our bad’ and sent off the relevant form. I then thought that was the end of it.”

The university again made another error and only alerted  Andru on Friday stating he was claiming financial support wrongly.

Andru said: “I emailed funding back asking how they can tell me off for not attending but claiming Leeds Financial Support when I’ve had an e-mail from fees telling me off for attending and not paying fees

“I was really annoyed by this point because it was getting ridiculous especially when I’m trying to balance my uni work, job work and personal life. I told them to check I’d been attending with my faculty, who have been really helpful. It’s central administration and their inability to talk to each other, the faculty and SFE that has messed everything up.”

Andru’s funding at present has been reinstated with his timetable reappeared.

Despite this, Andru has been warned this may not be the end of the problem: “Funding basically told me to expect SFE to contact me asking for all their money back and not to receive any support from next semester onward.

“But I think it’s gonna be OK. They should have sorted it out.”