Where we get our information

We don't copy figures from other websites. Every number in a guide gets traced back to whoever sets it.

UniSorted writes about money, and money copy goes stale fast. Loan rates move. So do thresholds and deadlines. So the rule on this desk is boring and strict: when a figure goes into a guide, the editor writing it opens the official page that owns that number, the same day. If we can't trace a figure to its source, it stays out.

The sources

Most of what we publish leans on a short list. Student finance comes from gov.uk and Student Finance England. Tax is HMRC. Applications and Clearing are UCAS. Earnings, rents and cost-of-living data come from the ONS, student numbers from HESA, and the regulators cover bills: Ofcom for broadband and mobile, Ofgem for energy. Insurance averages come from the ABI. When someone needs regulated, personal advice rather than journalism, we send them to MoneyHelper and say so plainly.

One thing we've learned doing this: SFE reshuffles its pages nearly every cycle. When the 2026/27 "how you're assessed and paid" guidance went up this June, we re-read it against our payment-dates guide and found the maintenance instalment split isn't published anywhere public. It only appears on your entitlement letter. We only found that because we read the page itself.

Going back

Numbers don't all age at the same speed. Two dates matter more than the rest: 6 April, when the tax year turns, and the start of August, when most student finance figures reset. Around those we re-check everything they touch. Market figures like rents and energy prices get another look each quarter. Deals go stale fastest of all, sometimes within a fortnight, and readers occasionally beat us to one.

The "last verified" date near the top of an article records the day an editor last checked every figure on that page against its source.

Spotted something off? Our corrections page has the address.