AIBU to ask how to pay off my student loan?

[EurusHolmes]

I have a student debt of £50k, which is increasing by approximately £150 every month.

I earn £16.5k a year, so don't qualify to pay it back yet.

I was reading anther thread, where most posters seem to think it's immoral to not pay the loan back. I don't think I will/can ever pay this back.

How do I pay this back when the interest is so high itself. Genuine question. I hate having it hanging over me.

On the other thread I think the objection was that she/her husband could afford to pay it back.

If you're on a low income and not married to someone who earns enough that your income doesn't matter that's a very different situation.

Fwiw I think the other poster was doing nothing wrong, she was following the terms of the loan which only take her income into account. I wonder how many of the moral outrage brigade had free higher education themselves.

Don't feel bad. Millions of people will never pay back their loan because they don't earn enough.

Gosh I'll never be able to pay off my student loan, I don't feel bad at all.

Completely different. She can afford to.

I ended up not going to uni because i couldnt afford it and didnt want debt. I still think if you have borrowed it for education you should pay it back. If you can.

She can't afford to - her husband can. There's a difference. It's not his loan.

As others have said, on the other thread the OP could afford to pay it back but had decided not to.

If you haven't the money to pay it back then you can't pay it back, it's as simple as that.

If you want to stop the interest accruing too much then if you do have any spare cash you could put it towards paying the loan. But you obviously can't prioritise that over essentials.

Won't most of the interest accruing get written off anyway? So it doesn't matter what rate it accrues at.

Anything outstanding after 30 years is written off. You don't earn enough to have to pay anything back at this stage. Read MoneySavingsExpert and you will see Martin Lewis suggests it should be thought of in terms of a graduate tax rather than a loan. That way as your earnings increase so will repayments much in the way thst you go up tax bands as your earnings increase. Also remember that the purpose of student loans is so people with lower incomes can go to uni. It wasn't that long ago that tuition was free and that you got grants not loans!

Do not worry. When you are earning enough they will take a share. If you never earn enough then you won't pay it back. Those are the terms. No one is going to come and beat down your door. I thought that the lateSt government figures suggested that the increase in tuition fees and the change to loan terms meant that they would actually get less money as fewer would qualify to pay. Not your problem

Its not a loan in the conventional sense like you've gone down the bank to obtain. Its no different to someone who's never paid tax but is entitled to NHS care or something like that. They called it a loan to guilt trip people like yourself into repaying it when you don't have to.