Student Lounge London Concessional Transport?

London Concessional Transport?

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      Hello

      Are CFA candidates eligble to receive the 30% discount on London transport? I cannot see the Institute on the list of registered institutions but there are a lot on there of comparable stature. Maybe we should ask CFA to register itself with TfL (and other transport boards around the world). I think it would be granted approval and it would be an added incentive to enrol in the program. A quick calc in my head says we could say around £500 pounds a year with the 30% discount (half the cost of enrollment).

      Cheers,

      https://www.tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/students-and-children/18-student?intcmp=1768#on-this-page-6

      https://photocard.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/registerApplicationStart.do

    • Avatar of policedogpolicedog
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        I did look into this last year, but I remember not getting very far with it.

        Re-looking again, specifically for TfL, I don’t think it will work. Looking at the specific terms and conditions of what is an eligible educational institution:

        1. An education establishment is only eligible to be registered as an administrator under the scheme if it:

        • is located in Greater London or, if located outside Greater London, has eligible students who live in London who regularly travel to and from the education establishment; and
        • provides to the student directly the full-time and part-time courses that the student attends; and
        • will have eligible students enrolled in the 2014/2015 academic year; and
        • further, if the education establishment has non-European Economic Area (EEA) students, the education establishment must hold a ‘Highly Trusted’ or ‘A (Trusted)’ sponsor rating awarded by the United Kingdom Border Agency (UKBA) or



        6. Email addresses provided must be of a named person and the domain name of the email address should reflect the education establishment’s name or abbreviation. Generic email prefixes such as admin@, info@ and web-based email addresses such as hotmail, gmail or yahoo are not accepted.

      • Avatar of ommthreeommthree
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          • CFA Charterholder
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          Sorry, it’s a clear no. CFA is not at all the sort of thing that student travel concessions are aimed at. To recap @policedog‌ ‘s key quotation:

          1. An education establishment is only eligible to be registered as an administrator under the scheme if it:

          • is located in Greater London or, if located outside Greater London, has eligible students who live in London who regularly travel to and from the education establishment; and
          • provides to the student directly the full-time and part-time courses that the student attends; and
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          Hi Police Dog

          Thanks for the info. CFA has an office in London, surely that would hurdle the criteria? I don’t see anything in the eligibility that the CFA has to have classrooms. Just not sure where we ‘attend’ the Program, seems and ambigious term. Small obstacle.

          The personalised email address issue would be easily solved by someone at CFA London providing themselves as a contact point.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CFA_Institute

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          Woooo ommthree, don’t be so
          quick to reject the query. I don’t think it is a clear no at all. Maybe you have never worked in law. Interpretation
          is fundamental, and here the rules are quite open. I understand the purpose of
          the arrangement; however that does not affect the eligibility of the Institute
          to apply. The approval would come down to how the Institute presents it’s application to the TfL.

          Criteria for the education institution to be registered:
          – is
          located in Greater London?
          Yes the CFA is located in London, it has an office here.

          provides
          to the student directly the full-time and part-time courses that the student
          attends.
          Here there is no definition of attend; accordingly it
          is open to interpretation (unless there is statue that backs the discount travel program which would provide a definition). Considering we are recommended to study a minimum of
          30 hours per week, we must ‘attend’ something. An easy argument to mount would
          be that study is generally undertaken at a location outside of a candidate’s home
          therefore requiring travel (e.g. libraries). The provision of services provided by the CFA in
          London is further evidenced by testing locations situated within Greater
          London.
          Material is provided ‘directly’ to candidates via the learning materials issued
          upon enrolment.

          – I read Clause 6 as the ‘nominated’ contact(s) must have an @cfainstitue email
          address, not the travel card applicants. Therefore each candidate would not
          require an @cfainstitute email address to apply. You must establish the context
          from the surround clauses. In this instance, the surround clauses are referring
          to the education institutions application, not their cohorts applications.

          Criteria for a student to apply:
          – The CFA is a postgraduate certification with recommended 30+ hours of study
          per week (therefore it clears the TfL’s criteria of requiring 15 hours of
          postgraduate study per week). There is no requirement for postgraduate studies
          to have contact hours.

          – There are no
          criteria here suggesting we all need an @cfainstitute email address to register
          for a discounted travel card.

          The biggest problem would evidently be CFA be willing to put in the application
          for registration. I think given the City’s dependency and encouragement of
          financial services, I don’t think the registration of the Institute as a
          recognised education provider would be at all difficult. Moreover, with accreditation
          for discounted travel in London (and potentially other cities) would clearly
          encourage marginal potential candidates to undertake the course resulting in an
          increase in enrolments. What more incentive would the CFA want?

          Can I sway your interpretations?

        • Avatar of policedogpolicedog
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            I agree that there is probably room for interpretation (and even then it’s a borderline case). I’m just not that convinced that CFA Institute will find it worth their time to do this…

          • Avatar of Zee TanZee Tan
            Keymaster
              • CFA Charterholder
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              @Discovery‌, I have to agree with @policedog‌ too 🙂

            • Avatar of policedogpolicedog
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                Agree with @ommthree‌. Basically what they’re saying is that the discount exists so that students can go to classes etc, so you need to prove that there are classes that students attend (which isn’t the case for CFA), have their own email addresses e.g. @uni.ac.uk (which we don’t as CFA candidates), and directly provides classes (which CFA Institute does not).

                Based on what I know about the CFA Institute, they wouldn’t be keen to help out on this either probably…

              • Avatar of ommthreeommthree
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                  I applaud your optimism, but no really, you have no chance:

                  “provides to the student directly the full-time and part-time courses”

                  They don’t provide a course, just a syllabus. Anyhow I imagine TfL would pretty quickly change their conditions to exclude CFA if pressed. 

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