To wonder why anyone rushes to pay off their student finance?

Who is this mysterious "taxpayer" who gives out student loans and pays for public services? People throw it around as though it's a separate entity from the rest of us - public sector workers and people with student loans. I pay taxes so evidently I am the very same taxpayer who gives out loans and pays my own salary...
I didn't agree to "pay back" the loan. I agreed to make regular repayments on any income above the threshold. The difference is subtle but it's there.

I posted near enough the same pages back. Got told I'm financially illiterate and that I don't know what I'm talking about. According to a poster there are no deductions made, the loan is cheap and you're financially illiterate if you think it's not. Oh and never use a bank for a mortgage, use a broker because brokers lend you the money yourselves without any questions, just need to know your net pay!

student loans aren’t cheap if you’re on plan 2 it’s currently 7.3%. Whilst mortgage lenders won’t specifically ask about your loan, when they see your payslip it will count towards affordability!

I used to get annual statements for my student loan and no matter how much I paid off each year the internet was almost exactly double what I paid (just a few pence different). So each year it just went up and up.
I paid it from 2004 until 2011 when I stopped working when I had my son.
I then started paying it again in 2021 when I returned to full time work.
I haven't received a statement from the student loan company since 2010 so I dread to think how high it is now.
I don't think I want to know how high it is.
Only another 21 years until I am 65 and it gets written off.

I paid mine off and kid of regret it. This is because I didn’t realise then that I would become a single parent working part time and claiming UC. When I left uni I got a full time job. I bought a house and then a year or so later sold it to buy another with my partner. I decided to use some of the equity gained from the first house to pay off my loan. I didn’t put it towards the next house as we needed to go in equal. However fast forward many years and we divorced after 2 children, I was made redundant and then offered a part time role so I then claimed UC to top me up. I’m still in that role 10 years later and earning no where near the repayment threshold. However I’ve since done a masters and taken a masters loan and have just left the repaying to when o ever earn enough.

Many people treat it as like another ‘tax’ deduction from salary though and the monthly amount can be rather small depending on earnings.

@surreywilds so you don't have a mortgage from a bank? Your broker lends you the monies??
And this bean counter underwrites mortgages exclusively from brokers! From all over the UK!

I left uni in 2008 and I genuinely think the SLC is the scam of our times. We were all told it would be like buying a cd each week or buying shopping now and paying for it in line with inflation. It simply isn't that.

I left with £12k debt. As it was a recession, it took a while for me to earn enough to pay it back. By the time I did, it was £16k. I've been paying over a decade and it's still more than the initial £12k. Imagine if that was at today's costs of £54k leaving uni!

I have no issue with taking a loan and paying it back but the payment terms are unclear if not misleading.

It's accumulating interest. If you earn enough to be paying off in full then you will pay less overall if you pay off quicker. It all depends if you're likely to pay off in full though!

You need to do the maths on your individual circumstances surely.

What do you earn and will you likely have to pay it off or will some (and if so how much) get written off.

Apply the interest rate and see if it's worth it. If you're having to pay the whole lot off and paying interest on it then whether it affects affordability on anything else isn't really the point - it's interest you could avoid paying if you paid the loan off.

In answer to the OP my DD did an NHS degree 2015-2018 so her tuition was funded by the NHS. Her loan is therefore maintenance only and she only got the minimum (which was also less than the minimum for a non NHS degree) and we were expected to sub her.

She therefore was in an extremely privileged position of finishing university with a debt of around 13k. 8 years after graduation she only has a couple of grand left on her loan and I keep telling her the interest rate is awful and she should be over paying it. She doesn’t.

DS did a standard degree and even on the minimum maintenance loan his debt is huge and I would never suggest over paying that.

You took out a loan, from the tax payer. You agreed to pay it back. Just do it.

mortgage broker...... I would NEVER go to a bank for a mortgage, no-one whose serious about buying and selling property does
Awwwww, that's delightfully funny. Someone talking down to a mortgage underwriter who doesn't realise their mortgage broker put the details into a bank or building society system to get checked... by the mortgage underwriter. It could even be cute if the ignorant one wasn't so rude.

I was plan 1 too and it took me what felt like forever to pay off. If I could have got rid sooner, I would. I cleared it the same year my eldest went to university. I didn't know that other plans hit differently until reading this thread. So I do thank the OP for raising it and I do now understand more. I do think education should be fully accessible and - if not free - affordable. It's all quite depressing really!

My mortgage broker works on Affordability , whats so hard for you to understand that?

I know all the retail bean counters in banks look at gross salary, I would NEVER go to a bank for a mortgage, no-one whose serious about buying and selling property does, and you know that.

And what I say about it being a cheap loan stands, any financially literate person knows this also.

I don't think plan 1 is written off till over 60 and you have to repay once earning over 24k (or something similar), so if you are always going to earn over that amount you might as well overpay to reduce the interest. That's only specific to the plan I am on. I've been paying off since 2007 ish and not only have £4 left. I did more than one degree

I think my initial comment has been taken more seriously than intended and as I stated subsequently - I pay exactly what I am required to pay. Despite doing that for the past 21 years, my student loan balance is the same as it was when I left university.

Another flippant comment for people to froth over: Hate the game, not the player!

I saw a post on another thread where Zusammengebrochen put a laugh react where someone said they were autistic.
They were pulled up on it, and they said they found it funny.

But a tax that you don't have to worry about if you had the prudence to go to university before a certain date, or to have parents who'll pay it upfront for you. Only for the profligates who don't tick those boxes!

There's so many different replies - it's good you are paying some back, but a few posters definitely don't plan to.
Addled brains today, sorry.