If you’ve repaid your Plan 1 student loan

I'd paid mine off by the time I was 35. My salary progression has been something like below:

20-25: £15k - £20k
25-30: £24k - £35k
30-35: £35k – £65k

I've just paid mine off with savings as the interest rate was higher than I could get for those savings. I graduated 21 years ago and still had a few k to go. In part this has been due to part time working.

I Graduated in 2009 but also don’t have a statement until 2016 so I’m not entirely sure how much I’d borrowed but I think it was in the region of £24k. I still have £13k outstanding.
Currently earning £34k as I’m part time. I’ve had two maternity leaves. I also salary sacrifice for a car and I think this has lowered my repayments.
it doesn’t feel as though I’ve paid off much at all in 15 years.

Graduated in 2010, have around 18 months left on mine after switching to the DD scheme a couple of months ago.

I'm a bit annoyed though as I wish I'd left it a bit later before switching to DD, so it would have been paid off a bit sooner. I am likely to have another maternity leave in the time left so now have to find the extra £158 to pay the DD during that as well.

Mine will be paid off in two months! I’m 32, graduated in 2013.

Barely made a dent in it during the first few years of my career, but a few big salary increases have got it down quite quickly. Currently on £70k.

I only came out of uni with around £9k worth of debt though, which I appreciate is a lot less than some!

I don’t think it’s that unusual these days. Those of us who graduated years ago, were lucky. The student loans and interest now, are horrendous 🤯. Many students will never pay off the loan. Average is about 50,000 if not more. Plus interest 🙈

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68534953.amp

I owed around £21000

Just gone onto direct debit with 23 payments to go.

I started on £18k now earn £77k (part time).

Taken 8 years to get to this point.

I started off owing around 20k...and it's still around 20k 13 years later. Due to a few years out where I didn't pay any of it off and a mat leave. Plus interest rates now are crazy. I won't pay it off, it will just get written off eventually. I've actually asked for refunds where I've paid too much some years.

I graduated in 2010, owing about £18k. I’ve earned so little in the time since that my current balance is about £21k. I don’t intend to pay it back as it will get written off. My repayments don’t even cover the added interest atm.

I think I have another 6 years of mine I’m on around 55k now but only the last 4 years prior to that was on around 34k so around 16 years all and all

I’m not sure if anyone else’s SLC records are very patchy but I didn’t receive an Annual Statement until 2015 and didn’t receive them annually even after that. It makes calculating how much I’ve actually paid in interest over the term difficult. Perhaps it’s for the best - until the last handful of years I wasn’t in a financial position to do anything about it such as transfer the balance to a 0% credit card, so there wasn’t any point worrying about how much I’d pay back overall.

I think anyone whose income has been low enough that they’ve been making low / no repayments and still have a high balance currently accruing interest at 6.25% is in an awful position.

@Meredithwho oh wow, that's insane!

Just the one!! 5 years long.

Graduated in 2008 with £14k debt, I'll finally pay it off this summer. I was working on below £20k salaries till c.2014, then career change and regular increases/promotions and I'm now on £45k.

I'd be more interested to know how much the loan cost people in total.

@Meredithwho omg, how many degrees did you do?! That's the size of a mortgage!

Almost done (I have 3 payments). I earned less than £20k until my mid 20s and then was earning over £50k afterwards. I also went through a year where I overpaid by £10-20 a month

Plan 1 pre 2005 here. London uni, 4 year degree with full maintenance meaning I owed £40k+ before interest. I worked part time due to disability and young children until this year so have never made a payment until now. If it was 30 years it would be written off in a few years.
As it is, with the interest, it will never be paid off. Even though I've now got a career where I'm a high earner able to work full-time.

I did a 5 year degree, think it came to about £20,000 in the end. I paid it off in 10 years, salary ranging from £30,000 starting to about £64,000 at peak but it dipped due to maternity leave and then reducing hours in that time.

I repaid it 14 years after graduating. I was on about £45,000, although I was on maternity leave at the time.

This makes me so sad 😢 I graduated in 2020 and my current student loan debt is attached as a photo 😂 I earn £55k at the moment but have no chance at paying it off….last year I paid back 2k but had over 5.5k added as interest!

My plan is to never pay it back tbh. It gets written off when I'm 65.

Mine has taken 14 years to pay off. I started on £23k for four years, £35k for four years, £55k for four years, to £74k for the past two years.

Graduated in 2009, think I owed about 30k at the time (6 year course but only £1100 tuition fees, which were mostly paid up front). Paid off in 2020. Would have been sooner but had 2 mat leaves and worked part time from 2017.

I was a junior doctor, so started on about £35k, rising to £55k-ish FT, but then back down to about £35k part time.

Graduated in 2009, making my final payment in June this year! For the first couple of recession years I was in a job which barely paid above minimum wage, after that I left London for a few years and was only earning around £25K. And of course, relatively high interest rates back then meant it was carrying more interest some years than I was making in repayments. It was only once I returned to London and became a higher earner that I really began getting the balance down and the past three years where I’ve been earning six figures that I’ve been properly hammering it.

I think the variable interest rate on it is awful tbh. No 17/18 year old really understands the implications of that (even if they have a choice about taking a loan in the first place, which many don’t.)