My partner pays £12 a month. Her interest is over £100. She’ll never pay it off.
Bokbreath on
Good for you. Turning education into a ‘pay to play’ business should be anathema. It is nothing more than a tax on self-improvement.
Waste-Block-2146 on
You know what I fully agree with what he said:
“I’m not against the idea of a social contract”, says David, “I just don’t think student loans are equal or fair. The idea that interest can spiral to the extent that it has – where I’m being charged an annual interest rate of 7.9pc on my balance – is absurd. Plus, the fact that the system has been implemented by a generation who had their education for free makes it even more unfair”
Fuck the UK government and their student loans, and good on him for avoiding paying it. Can’t wait till I do the same in a year or two.
Chupagley13 on
He’s not wrong, most people aren’t even paying the loan, they’re just servicing the interest and will never pay the thing in full.
Don’t blame people for not wanting to service the interest of a loan they’ll never pay off from abroad.
Longjumping-Buy-4736 on
“The idea that interest can spiral to the extent that it has – where I’m being charged an annual interest rate of 7.9pc on my balance – is absurd. Plus, the fact that the system has been implemented by a generation who had their education for free makes it even more unfair.”
Totally fair. 8% rate is extortionate to begin with.
This is essentially a tax on social mobility levied against all classes lower than the middle.
Common-Ad6470 on
The tories just copied the US system of student loans which Biden was trying to cancel but the financial system vetoed it as they’re making so much money from it.
It’s a cancer on the future prosperity of a country to have students pay these inflated loans for their and countries future.
LogTheDogFucksFrogs on
I totally get it. I have a health condition that is potentially life shortening so there’s no hope in hell of me paying it off at present, but even were that scrubbed, I suspect I’d still struggle. I’m a public sector worker earning just under the UK average. We need to wind back the clock on universities, and go back to the old system where the state footed the bill for the brightest and best to saturate themselves in culture and produce great art and literature. Those of a more technical bent should be herded towards the sciences, with an eye to practical outputs like new medicines, and the rest should be going into trades or vocational apprenticeships. What we have now is the worst of all worlds: a bloated Higher Education sector, all but fully captured by international students who drive up grade inflation; universities have invested in glossy student pads rather than lecturers and research facilities and seem more interested in milking the children of decaying Chinese dynasties than servicing home-grown talent. It’s a disgrace.
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idiotabroad19 on
As as British citizen, living abroad with something close to 60k uni debt, I find it irresponsible to not keep SLC in the loop.
I’ve worked abroad every year since graduating, they send me a letter this time every year, I tell them how much I make, and that’s that. Out of 5 years working abroad, I only ever made repayments for one of those years.
I have colleagues who ignore SLC. None of us ever intend to return to the UK, but what if we have to for whatever reason? I don’t want a nasty surprise waiting for me.
Without sounding like a pretentious cunt, at my job we all make a very good salary in a pretty low COL country, and have plenty of disposable income. Making repayments to SLC, if necessary, makes barely a dent into my monthly budget.
[deleted] on
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i-am-a-passenger on
I went 10 years without paying, but then I moved back 🙁 Only 15 years left at least
grimmmlol on
If the repayments could be removed from your wage and managed manually, I’d never bother paying it back either. Alas, it comes directly off my wage.
Vardy on
Turning education into for-profit is always going to end up badly. The people running the universities know they are in the same position as other large entities where the government will bail them out once all the value has been extracted.
Student loans are a scam. They’re bad loans given to young people who don’t really grasp the fuill extent of the problem they’ll be giving themselves in years to come. The interest alone is abhorrent.
I was “lucky” that mine was *only* £12k for two years (loan+maintenance per year). But that ended up being money I was unable to save and use to put towards a house. I fear for the social mobility being lost to those now with lifelong debts that will hinder them.
woodchiponthewall on
I have a student loan, it’s shit – But people need to take some accountability, the terms were known when taking out the loan, as was the employability & salary of the future career your degree enables?
None of this is unexpected?
Enigma_789 on
The SLC should up its game and go after some of these people. They need to face the consequences of their (in)actions. The guy in this article comes across as extremely smug and self centred.
Puhelinkayttaja on
I’m an EU student and I enrolled in a UK university 2017 and graduated in 2021 so I owed about £37k at the time when I graduated. I found a job in the UK but made under the threshold so didn’t pay any of it back at that time. I moved back home within a year and got a better paying job. I couldn’t be bothered to sort student loans immediately because trying to sort it with SLC was a pain in the ass (no email communication, need to call someone who speaks English as a third language with an awful accent) but as they transferred my case to Transcom Worldwide I was able to sort monthly payments for a while with more ease. After the payments to Transcom directly ended, I just started a dorect debit to SLC without consulting them on it, a much smaller sum than required by my income and country of living, but which I felt was more fair. Inflation fucking sucks, I get taxed on my income quite a bit, and I know full well that I’m not paying those loans fully off ever. I think the loan system was planned around knowing that some people never pay it off and it’s an accepted cost of running the otherwise profitable loan scheme. It just sucks to have the feeling of being in debt and Idk how it will affect me if I try to get a mortgage at some point. By the sounds of it, I’m one of the few actually paying back anything at all, maybe I should stop all together, or pay less each month.
Kidsturk on
I naturally stopped paying when I moved overseas and wasn’t in the tax system- this was mid 2000s. They started contacting my parents and asking about me, my salary, my whereabouts.
KrypoKnight on
He makes valid points and I personally believe student loans should be interest free. I wonder how it affects his pension (assuming he’s still paying for qualifying NI years)
merryman1 on
I’m actually not even sure what is the bigger problem to be honest. The debt we’re saddling people with is ridiculous. Especially with the limited repayment period, we know its kind of pointless given the overall low rate of repayment anyway. But on top of that there surely has to be an issue where we seem to have walked into a position where getting a good quality degree and working what is supposed to be a decent middle class professional lifestyle still leaves you in a position where ~£30-40k is pretty much the bracket you’re expected to hit and inhabit for most of your life. That rate has basically not changed for as long as I’ve been in the workforce at least, whereas the cost of everything has doubled.
I’m sure a big idea if you were trying to run a loan system like this as anything more than an utterly cynical ploy to take HE costs off the state spending book, part of the calculation ought to be that the people getting these kinds of qualifications ought to enjoy such a rate of wage-growth that they easily outpace the interest and can actually afford to repay the damn thing.
As it stands I’m also still not quite sure how its been blatantly clear that the student debt building up in the background is a ticking time bomb, everyone knows its worth pennies to the pounds written on paper, it has a very solid cut-off when its going to go off, we all know and are conscious of this, yet its like only in the last maybe year or two people seemed to start noticing? For years I’ve been talking about this issue and half the responses just seem to be some variant of “well its not real debt anyway so it doesn’t matter”, “its just a graduate tax not a loan” lol…
3106Throwaway181576 on
Rational economic agents will do as they wish.
I’d be lying if id said me and my wife hadn’t considered it. The only reason she won’t is because she’s a Doctor and it could trash her licences.
Were I single, I’d be looking to do just that. Come and get me in Australia… or the US… or Canada… but I’m not telling you where I am lol.
HolyTesticleToosday on
I’m from NZ and the position was yes you have an INSANELY EXPENSIVE loan, but we won’t charge you interest on the principal …. unless you go overseas for 6 months or more. Which stings a lot of kiwis as many want and need to travel to utilise their degree and gain experience due to a limited job market, but… at least it’s a choice.
If the UK won’t make higher education free, then can’t we at LEAST consider a similar tack in relation to interest? It’s disheartening enough when students are already getting massive loans in a cost of living crisis, when as a country we can’t be sure that will actually turn into a profitable career/lifestyle where they’ll be able to support themselves. It’s just further killing students morale and ability to ever get ahead.
Come on Labour and make an actual change to this situation! There are so many options!
XenorVernix on
The increase to £9k was the killer. When I went to university the fees were around £3.2k per year and whilst that wasn’t as cheap as it was several years prior I didn’t find it a bad deal. I graduated with around £20k of debt due to the additional loans for living costs. I still owe around £6k 14 years later but I am on track to pay it off in the next couple of years. It barely budged for the first 8 years of my career. I couldn’t imagine ever paying off the £50k loans people graduate with these days.
Tuition fees should be reduced back to £3k (or perhaps £4k to account for inflation) and I think a lot of students will accept that level of debt as I did back in the day. I wouldn’t have bothered going to university with £9k fees. Trouble is where do these institutions make up the funding gap?
chickenwrapzz on
Someone (me) is paying for this debt. It’s the same as a credit card APR going up as fraud does. As unfair as the system is, someone has to pay. Currently its costing me retirement and my chances of owning a home. For everyone dodging the system and telling the telegraph of all papers should be ashamed
tonyjd1973 on
Nice bit of free money whilst doing their Masters at the taxpayers expense.
DurhamOx on
I’d disagree with them if it weren’t for the fact that:
1. English and Welsh students are penalised in a way their Scottish counterparts aren’t
2. They didn’t have to compete with foreign students for whom grading standards are lower
harryhardy432 on
I don’t get why student loans collect interest anyway. If I have to get one to get a job in the modern world, with it being an expectation, and it’s gonna be taken off my salary before I even see it, AND it’s gonna be written off anyway eventually, why not just make it interest free?
I’d be far more interested in paying it off, and would actually aim to do so as a point of pride if it was ever gonna matter that I made voluntary payments into it.
However, everyone I know are of the opinion that there’s no point because whatever payments made are going to be dwarfed by interest anyway. Which is both true and correct.
jwjosh on
I’ve got £55k on mine the last time I checked, I graduated in 2017. What pissed me off a lot was tutors went on strike and barely had any lectures in 3rd year and still had to pay full £9,000. To top it off I also did “a year in industry” and STILL had to pay £4,500 even though I wasn’t at uni!
soothysayer on
Fair play. If Scotland and Ireland can afford to offer free tuition then why in the name of fuck can’t the country with one of the worlds major financial hubs in it afford to?
Absolutely ridiculous. If around 50% of English people are below average IQ, it makes sense to try and raise the average. It benefits everyone
bananablegh on
Oh no. We tried to saddle our young with atrociously high debt for higher education if they don’t have rich parents. And now some of those young are leaving our country and not paying the enormous debt. Woe is us.
Jiggaboy95 on
There was another thread about disadvantaged Brits getting access to University now due to foreign students numbers dropping. Lot of comments saying it’s bad because lack of funding…
But why should higher education only available to those that can afford it? Or those that want to live with student debt hovering over their lives.
The systems fucked. Especially when half the degrees you get don’t even result in a decent paying job, yet they charge out the arsehole for it.
chance1829 on
If you are unwilling to repay your debts then be decent enough not to take the money. If it was up to me I would bring back debtors’ prisons…
backcountry57 on
My wife and I left the UK in 2014. We had £20k of student loans between us. We paid anything since we left. We originally tried to but the SLC customer service was slow and crap. So we didn’t bother in the end. I occasionally get a email from them asking me to update my details.
Chlorophilia on
I’m paying over £3000/year to SLC from abroad. Having said that, I completely agree with the guy in the article and I’d do the same if I didn’t intend to return to the UK. The interest rate on the loans is crazy, it would be seen as predatory if it wasn’t run by the government.
With-You-Always on
My children are dual nationals and they will be going to university in Austria where their mum is from, it’s basically free
34 Comments
My partner pays £12 a month. Her interest is over £100. She’ll never pay it off.
Good for you. Turning education into a ‘pay to play’ business should be anathema. It is nothing more than a tax on self-improvement.
You know what I fully agree with what he said:
“I’m not against the idea of a social contract”, says David, “I just don’t think student loans are equal or fair. The idea that interest can spiral to the extent that it has – where I’m being charged an annual interest rate of 7.9pc on my balance – is absurd. Plus, the fact that the system has been implemented by a generation who had their education for free makes it even more unfair”
Fuck the UK government and their student loans, and good on him for avoiding paying it. Can’t wait till I do the same in a year or two.
He’s not wrong, most people aren’t even paying the loan, they’re just servicing the interest and will never pay the thing in full.
Don’t blame people for not wanting to service the interest of a loan they’ll never pay off from abroad.
“The idea that interest can spiral to the extent that it has – where I’m being charged an annual interest rate of 7.9pc on my balance – is absurd. Plus, the fact that the system has been implemented by a generation who had their education for free makes it even more unfair.”
Totally fair. 8% rate is extortionate to begin with.
This is essentially a tax on social mobility levied against all classes lower than the middle.
The tories just copied the US system of student loans which Biden was trying to cancel but the financial system vetoed it as they’re making so much money from it.
It’s a cancer on the future prosperity of a country to have students pay these inflated loans for their and countries future.
I totally get it. I have a health condition that is potentially life shortening so there’s no hope in hell of me paying it off at present, but even were that scrubbed, I suspect I’d still struggle. I’m a public sector worker earning just under the UK average. We need to wind back the clock on universities, and go back to the old system where the state footed the bill for the brightest and best to saturate themselves in culture and produce great art and literature. Those of a more technical bent should be herded towards the sciences, with an eye to practical outputs like new medicines, and the rest should be going into trades or vocational apprenticeships. What we have now is the worst of all worlds: a bloated Higher Education sector, all but fully captured by international students who drive up grade inflation; universities have invested in glossy student pads rather than lecturers and research facilities and seem more interested in milking the children of decaying Chinese dynasties than servicing home-grown talent. It’s a disgrace.
[deleted]
As as British citizen, living abroad with something close to 60k uni debt, I find it irresponsible to not keep SLC in the loop.
I’ve worked abroad every year since graduating, they send me a letter this time every year, I tell them how much I make, and that’s that. Out of 5 years working abroad, I only ever made repayments for one of those years.
I have colleagues who ignore SLC. None of us ever intend to return to the UK, but what if we have to for whatever reason? I don’t want a nasty surprise waiting for me.
Without sounding like a pretentious cunt, at my job we all make a very good salary in a pretty low COL country, and have plenty of disposable income. Making repayments to SLC, if necessary, makes barely a dent into my monthly budget.
[deleted]
I went 10 years without paying, but then I moved back 🙁 Only 15 years left at least
If the repayments could be removed from your wage and managed manually, I’d never bother paying it back either. Alas, it comes directly off my wage.
Turning education into for-profit is always going to end up badly. The people running the universities know they are in the same position as other large entities where the government will bail them out once all the value has been extracted.
Student loans are a scam. They’re bad loans given to young people who don’t really grasp the fuill extent of the problem they’ll be giving themselves in years to come. The interest alone is abhorrent.
I was “lucky” that mine was *only* £12k for two years (loan+maintenance per year). But that ended up being money I was unable to save and use to put towards a house. I fear for the social mobility being lost to those now with lifelong debts that will hinder them.
I have a student loan, it’s shit – But people need to take some accountability, the terms were known when taking out the loan, as was the employability & salary of the future career your degree enables?
None of this is unexpected?
The SLC should up its game and go after some of these people. They need to face the consequences of their (in)actions. The guy in this article comes across as extremely smug and self centred.
I’m an EU student and I enrolled in a UK university 2017 and graduated in 2021 so I owed about £37k at the time when I graduated. I found a job in the UK but made under the threshold so didn’t pay any of it back at that time. I moved back home within a year and got a better paying job. I couldn’t be bothered to sort student loans immediately because trying to sort it with SLC was a pain in the ass (no email communication, need to call someone who speaks English as a third language with an awful accent) but as they transferred my case to Transcom Worldwide I was able to sort monthly payments for a while with more ease. After the payments to Transcom directly ended, I just started a dorect debit to SLC without consulting them on it, a much smaller sum than required by my income and country of living, but which I felt was more fair. Inflation fucking sucks, I get taxed on my income quite a bit, and I know full well that I’m not paying those loans fully off ever. I think the loan system was planned around knowing that some people never pay it off and it’s an accepted cost of running the otherwise profitable loan scheme. It just sucks to have the feeling of being in debt and Idk how it will affect me if I try to get a mortgage at some point. By the sounds of it, I’m one of the few actually paying back anything at all, maybe I should stop all together, or pay less each month.
I naturally stopped paying when I moved overseas and wasn’t in the tax system- this was mid 2000s. They started contacting my parents and asking about me, my salary, my whereabouts.
He makes valid points and I personally believe student loans should be interest free. I wonder how it affects his pension (assuming he’s still paying for qualifying NI years)
I’m actually not even sure what is the bigger problem to be honest. The debt we’re saddling people with is ridiculous. Especially with the limited repayment period, we know its kind of pointless given the overall low rate of repayment anyway. But on top of that there surely has to be an issue where we seem to have walked into a position where getting a good quality degree and working what is supposed to be a decent middle class professional lifestyle still leaves you in a position where ~£30-40k is pretty much the bracket you’re expected to hit and inhabit for most of your life. That rate has basically not changed for as long as I’ve been in the workforce at least, whereas the cost of everything has doubled.
I’m sure a big idea if you were trying to run a loan system like this as anything more than an utterly cynical ploy to take HE costs off the state spending book, part of the calculation ought to be that the people getting these kinds of qualifications ought to enjoy such a rate of wage-growth that they easily outpace the interest and can actually afford to repay the damn thing.
As it stands I’m also still not quite sure how its been blatantly clear that the student debt building up in the background is a ticking time bomb, everyone knows its worth pennies to the pounds written on paper, it has a very solid cut-off when its going to go off, we all know and are conscious of this, yet its like only in the last maybe year or two people seemed to start noticing? For years I’ve been talking about this issue and half the responses just seem to be some variant of “well its not real debt anyway so it doesn’t matter”, “its just a graduate tax not a loan” lol…
Rational economic agents will do as they wish.
I’d be lying if id said me and my wife hadn’t considered it. The only reason she won’t is because she’s a Doctor and it could trash her licences.
Were I single, I’d be looking to do just that. Come and get me in Australia… or the US… or Canada… but I’m not telling you where I am lol.
I’m from NZ and the position was yes you have an INSANELY EXPENSIVE loan, but we won’t charge you interest on the principal …. unless you go overseas for 6 months or more. Which stings a lot of kiwis as many want and need to travel to utilise their degree and gain experience due to a limited job market, but… at least it’s a choice.
If the UK won’t make higher education free, then can’t we at LEAST consider a similar tack in relation to interest? It’s disheartening enough when students are already getting massive loans in a cost of living crisis, when as a country we can’t be sure that will actually turn into a profitable career/lifestyle where they’ll be able to support themselves. It’s just further killing students morale and ability to ever get ahead.
Come on Labour and make an actual change to this situation! There are so many options!
The increase to £9k was the killer. When I went to university the fees were around £3.2k per year and whilst that wasn’t as cheap as it was several years prior I didn’t find it a bad deal. I graduated with around £20k of debt due to the additional loans for living costs. I still owe around £6k 14 years later but I am on track to pay it off in the next couple of years. It barely budged for the first 8 years of my career. I couldn’t imagine ever paying off the £50k loans people graduate with these days.
Tuition fees should be reduced back to £3k (or perhaps £4k to account for inflation) and I think a lot of students will accept that level of debt as I did back in the day. I wouldn’t have bothered going to university with £9k fees. Trouble is where do these institutions make up the funding gap?
Someone (me) is paying for this debt. It’s the same as a credit card APR going up as fraud does. As unfair as the system is, someone has to pay. Currently its costing me retirement and my chances of owning a home. For everyone dodging the system and telling the telegraph of all papers should be ashamed
Nice bit of free money whilst doing their Masters at the taxpayers expense.
I’d disagree with them if it weren’t for the fact that:
1. English and Welsh students are penalised in a way their Scottish counterparts aren’t
2. They didn’t have to compete with foreign students for whom grading standards are lower
I don’t get why student loans collect interest anyway. If I have to get one to get a job in the modern world, with it being an expectation, and it’s gonna be taken off my salary before I even see it, AND it’s gonna be written off anyway eventually, why not just make it interest free?
I’d be far more interested in paying it off, and would actually aim to do so as a point of pride if it was ever gonna matter that I made voluntary payments into it.
However, everyone I know are of the opinion that there’s no point because whatever payments made are going to be dwarfed by interest anyway. Which is both true and correct.
I’ve got £55k on mine the last time I checked, I graduated in 2017. What pissed me off a lot was tutors went on strike and barely had any lectures in 3rd year and still had to pay full £9,000. To top it off I also did “a year in industry” and STILL had to pay £4,500 even though I wasn’t at uni!
Fair play. If Scotland and Ireland can afford to offer free tuition then why in the name of fuck can’t the country with one of the worlds major financial hubs in it afford to?
Absolutely ridiculous. If around 50% of English people are below average IQ, it makes sense to try and raise the average. It benefits everyone
Oh no. We tried to saddle our young with atrociously high debt for higher education if they don’t have rich parents. And now some of those young are leaving our country and not paying the enormous debt. Woe is us.
There was another thread about disadvantaged Brits getting access to University now due to foreign students numbers dropping. Lot of comments saying it’s bad because lack of funding…
But why should higher education only available to those that can afford it? Or those that want to live with student debt hovering over their lives.
The systems fucked. Especially when half the degrees you get don’t even result in a decent paying job, yet they charge out the arsehole for it.
If you are unwilling to repay your debts then be decent enough not to take the money. If it was up to me I would bring back debtors’ prisons…
My wife and I left the UK in 2014. We had £20k of student loans between us. We paid anything since we left. We originally tried to but the SLC customer service was slow and crap. So we didn’t bother in the end. I occasionally get a email from them asking me to update my details.
I’m paying over £3000/year to SLC from abroad. Having said that, I completely agree with the guy in the article and I’d do the same if I didn’t intend to return to the UK. The interest rate on the loans is crazy, it would be seen as predatory if it wasn’t run by the government.
My children are dual nationals and they will be going to university in Austria where their mum is from, it’s basically free