If you’ve repaid your Plan 1 student loan

[Allthesea]

How long did it take you, and what sort of salary have you been earning to get there?

Thanks

Mine was £20k

Mine was for £23k and took 15yrs. The first 5yrs i barely paid anything due to my salary being so low. I made a real dent in it over the last 9 years when i was earning between £30k and £50k.

Congratulations on nearly paying it off!! 🥳

Just through salary, no extra payments.

I graduated in 2005 but I only had £9k debt. I paid it off in 5 years. ( I went on maternity leave in 2010 and paid a final lump sum of about £1k then to clear it)

I have just under £500 left to pay, soooooo close! Took £16k loan and graduated in 2008. Salary has increased over those years from £30k to £50k

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.)

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.

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

Just the one!! 5 years long.

@Meredithwho oh wow, that's insane!

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.

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 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 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 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.