Student loans

It isn't often that I write about topical news,well actually I never do to be honest but I felt I had to after reading this.
http://www.expressandstar.com/2009/09/16/cash-offer-to-students/
The university helping out first year students with emergancy funding is all well and good, but students in 2nd and 3rd year will be affected just as bad with the delays of loan payments by student loan company. Personally I am having a fight with the SLC to get my loan. I filled it out online as I was told it would be processed faster than if i was to fill it out the good old fashioned way by pen and paper, what a load of bullshit.

Apparently they were going to send my mum a letter in the post with a password in so she could gain access to the loan site and confirm the details that I had already given for her, she has yet to recieve that letter. But last week she got a letter saying they are waiting for confirmation information off her so that my loan can be processed. My mother is a lot of things but she isn't superhuman, how is it possible for her to have gave information without having the password to gain access to the site.
I bet the people who work for SLC are just an evolutionary step above cavemen. Utter useless idiots. I appreciate that it is not their fault a record number of people have applied for university, but making stupid mistakes like this slows down the whole process.

The university have not mentioned anything about giving emergany loans, or atleast I haven't heard about it. Im assuming they would have told you by letter if you had been one of the lucky ones to have been given the emergancy grant. I'm guessing I'm not one of them. Probably a postcode lottery or something.
This leaves me in a bit of a pickle, I had banked on getting my loan on time and had allocated money from it to be spent on books for my course, as I do English books are something I have to spend money on. Even if i get them second hand, they still cost, and without a loan being able to afford them is a bit of a non starter. Especially as I have just spen my hard earned wages on things that I need for halls such as duvet, pillows, cleaning things, food etc. So until my loan comes whenever that will be, I'm just going to have to hope the library has the books that I will need for my modules. My guess is though is that there will be people with the same idea as me. In the past I have had mad after lecture races to the library with people from my course who have wisely had the same idea, thing is though they always win.