Giantaxe

I moved from the UK to the US so that can't be an explanation for me.

I'm sticking by my theory that you got credit for further education years when the requirement was 45 years for a "full" pension. With a retirement age of 65, absent that credit, no graduate would have got the full amount as it's extremely unlikely they would have started employment at age 20.

As to how they can tell you were in further education, I was in receipt of a government grant (and maybe some notional tuition was paid to the university in my name?).

Novocastrian

I suppose the only way I could find out for sure would be to apply for a separate pension estimate from Germany.

dunroving

I found the following on the NIDirect site:

"Credits for people in full-time training

If you are aged over 18 and in full-time training, you will get credits. This is provided the training is approved and does not last longer than a year.

Government sponsored courses are approved automatically. This does not apply to university students.

These credits count towards basic State Pension only (not additional State Pension).

If the training course is government sponsored you do not need to take any action to get the credits. Otherwise, you will need to apply to Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC)."

I thought that students younger than 18 who are in F-T education (school, 6th form college, etc.) get NI credits - or used to, anyway (not 100% sure). My state pension forecast showed I get NI credit for my years at university, but I was working a lot of part-time hours the whole time so I can't tell if what was salary-earned NI credits or to do with being at university F-T. Same thing for when I was at school - I was working every weekend so my NIC's might have been due to my P-T job.

Editha

I don't know. I do have more years to my credit than I'd expect. But, it is difficult for me to work out why on my own record because of my own chequered career. I have several gaps in my record apart from studying. On at least a couple of occasions I've paid voluntary contributions to catch up, but can no longer remember how much or why.

dunroving

Don't know if this will help answer any of the questions but I just pulled my NI record.

It doesn't start until the year I turned 18, so it appears I got no credit for when I was working part-time between 16-18 years (every Saturday and school holidays), and a full-time school pupil in the 6th form.

During the three years I was in college from 19-21 years of age, it appears I did not get NI credit even though I was working many hours part-time (evenings, weekends, and holidays).

What is confusing me about those these years is the following excerpted columns:

Year in college / Number of NICs paid at Class I / Number of NI credits / Notes about your contributions
Year 1 / 31.46 / 000 / Too Late to Pay
Year 2 / 6.99 / 10 / Too Late to Pay
Year 3 / 25.98 / 6 / Too Late to Pay

- it seems weird that the Number of NICs paid seems to be unrelated to the number of NI credits - anyone have any idea?

[ETA: Just noticed in the preamble it says I "currently" (in 2012, I think) have 16 qualifying years up to 5 April 2012. This includes 148 NICs paid or credited up to 5 April 19XX" (the year I turned 18)]

Editha

I went straight into employment after school because my parents refused to sign the grant forms for university. As a point of information:- the switch from grants with parental contribution to student loans resulted in a 50% increase in middle-class girls going to university.

What I do remember clearly is that after my first year at work, I got a letter from NI saying that I had not got a full year's NI contributions because I'd still been at school when I turned 18. It stuck in the mind because I felt hard done by.

So I don't think that over 18s did get credit for NI, but 16 to 18 year olds did.

Editha

I think we need an historian of the welfare state.

dunroving

Or an NI nerd.

not2old

easy reading.....

History of the welfare state

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/p...ld/welfare.htm

The history of state pensions in the UK: 1948 to 2010.

www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn105.pdf
by A Bozio - ‎2010 - ‎Cited by 14 - ‎Related articles
Jul 6, 2010 - Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2010. 1. The history of state pensions in the UK: 1948 to 2010. Antoine Bozio, Rowena Crawford and Gemma Tetlow ..

nun

From 1975 to 2010 if you were between that ages of 16 and 18 you got NI "starting credits". I think these were Class 3. I was at SFC between 1977 and 1980 and got 3 free credits. At 18 I went to university and the free credits stopped, but HMRC sent me letters each year saying I could make voluntary contributions...I ignored them and didn't start paying them until I became an expat. For the first couple of years I paid Class 3, but then there was some new legislation and I changed over to the far less expensive Class 2.

https://www.gov.uk/government/upload...ts-changes.pdf

Editha

Yeah, I found those articles too. They don't go into the nitty gritty. I think Dunroving is right. We need a nerd.

Editha

You are younger than me.

cyrian

When I was in full-time further education, I had a summer job which gave me enough stamps to qualify. The minimum annual payment is not too difficult to achieve.
Yes they did actually stick a stamp in a book for each employee

Novocastrian

That could be part of the reason in my case too. As an undergrad I had summer jobs as well as working as a temp at the post in December most years. But this all discontinued when I was doing my doctorate. Summer holidays, what are those?