Published: 29/09/2025 · Last Updated: 25/08/2025

HEP bulletin - September 2025

Registration confirmation for academic year (AY) 2025/26

At the start of a new academic year, there are a few points to remember.

You must only confirm registration if you're confident the student’s enrolled for the coming term. For new students it is recommended that this is after you've had face-to-face contact with them.

Please submit registration confirmations before confirming attendance. You should check and administer your registration worklist regularly.

If you know the student is not pursuing higher education, submit a negative 'N' code confirmation. You should submit this as soon as you find out. You can wait 28 calendar days to submit an 'N' (not registered) confirmation. This allows the student time to register at a different university or college.

You can find guidance on registration on the HEP Services website.

Confirming attendance

You must submit attendance confirmations when students start attending their courses and after any cooling off period when students become liable for fees. Your university or college cooling off period should be in your student terms and conditions.

The liability 1 attendance confirmation deadline is 9 October for the first fee payment date of 15 October.

You must also submit non-attendance confirmations and any Change of Circumstance (CoC) notifications. This helps to keep accurate information on student accounts and minimises the overpayment and recovery of overpaid maintenance and tuition fee overpayments.

For guidance on attendance and registration please review our SIS user guide.

Split of tuition fees

For clarification on how the new AY 2025/26 tuition fee is split over the 3 instalments there is detailed information for full time undergraduate courses and part time undergraduate courses available on the Student Finance England website.

AY 2024/25 registration and attendance confirmations

You must prioritise outstanding registration or attendance confirmations for AY 2024/25 courses. This is especially important for later intakes and outstanding recoveries. Check your CoC worklists for outstanding CoCs.

Please also check your worklists for any outstanding confirmations from previous years.

Fee limits for part time undergraduate foundation year courses

All students on the foundation year of a part time undergraduate course must have their tuition fee reflected in line with the new regulations.

For courses that meet the criteria for the lower fee limit, there's guidance on the foundation year tuition fee limit available on the HEP Services website.

Courses Management Service (CMS)

There are several factors which contribute to a student's funding entitlement on CMS. These include:

the course
length of course
term dates
fees
placement years

Changes made to CMS will trigger a reassessment of all students already on that course. If you make a change, students will receive a new entitlement letter. This may cause concern if they are not expecting it. For this reason, please only update courses when the correct information is available.

Changing course start dates

We’re seeing an increase in providers changing course start dates very late and requesting quick updates so students can receive payments on time.

Late changes can impact students should they receive a new entitlement letter, which can increase contact to our helplines. For this reason we ask you wherever possible to ensure your courses are correct first time.

If you need to amend an already saved course, email our Partners Support Desk at SSIN_queries@slc.co.uk with the details as soon as you can. You may also need to discuss actions with your Account Manager, including writing to students to explain the change.

Welsh course designation

From 1 August 2017, the automatic designation of full-time higher education courses applies only to courses provided by 'recognised educational institutions'.

If a higher education course is not automatically designated, the Welsh ministers will need to designate it. Once this happens, students can apply for financial support from the Welsh Government. Please verify the designation status of your courses and withhold promotion to new Welsh intakes for AY 2025/26. You must do this until you resolve the issue with designation.

Franchising rules for Welsh students are different from those for English students. For franchise arrangements with a non-OfS registered provider, you must also seek specific designation from the Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (MEDR). You must do this before advertising the course to Welsh students.

You can find guidance on Welsh course designation on the HEP Services website.

Bursary Administration Service (BAS)

BAS subscribers have received an invoice for the first instalment of the uplift fee. There are still some outstanding invoices and we have sent reminders to pay. Please note that the uplift fee invoice is different from the annual subscription invoice which we sent in March. If the uplift invoice is outstanding from your accounts payable or finance team please arrange for payment.

Lifelong Learning Entitlement (LLE)

We recently held an LLE Student Eligibility and Entitlement webinar. We'll notify you when this is available on the HEP Services website.

Throughout November and December we're holding a series of regional seminars across the country. We'll notify you when you can register for these events. Please make sure your contacts are up to date in the Maintain Contacts section of the HE Gateway to receive communication.

You can find up to date information on the LLE on the HEP Services website. This includes the LLE overview and the Provider Preparation Guide. Please make sure you are familiar with the content and steps suggested in the Provider Preparation Guide.

You must make sure your IT supplier or manager is aware of the CMS technical specification that's available on the HE Gateway, as the data fields in CMS are changing for the LLE.

Please send this email on to others in your college or university who need to know how SFE funding is changing with the LLE.

Phishing and smishing

Scammers often target students as they receive their first Maintenance Loan payment. We're reminding students to be vigilant of phishing fraud scams through email or social media. This year we're also urging extra vigilance against text messaging scams, known as 'smishing'.

Fraudsters may send students emails or text messages claiming to be us. These communications will look urgent. They'll also often tell students that their payments will be withheld if they fail to comply. We’ll never ask your students to provide or verify personal or financial information by email or text message. We'll also never contact students through social media channels such as WhatsApp or Instagram.

Please remind students to use our official channels or their online account to verify if any suspicious contact is genuine. If they receive a suspicious message, they should report it immediately by emailing report@phishing.gov.uk.

Please help us with tackling fraud by passing this information onto your students.

There's also a range of resources to help recognise and avoid scams. You can share these with students to help them stay aware of any potential risks.