Student loans- feel sick

[Lazy56789]

I did a degree around 15 years ago, and a Masters around 10 years ago.
A repayment is taken out of my salary each month based on my earnings, but when I received a letter from student finance today I saw my balance was 41k! And over 2k in interest was added in the last tax year.

It's terrifying, I'm not in a position to pay off huge amounts, how does anyone do it? The figures are eye-watering, I feel like i must've done something wrong for it to be so high?

I’m not sure how you’ve only just found out you get interest on the loans. You sound shocked….
I have 3 degrees and probably over 100K student debt (I don’t check) but monthly payments are more than manageable. I just don’t think about it.

I just did some googling, and it seems that the Plan 5 loans will involve more people paying off their loans (~70% estimated instead of ~25%). Interest rates will be RPI only not +3%, but repayments will be higher.

Interestingly, instead of paying off only half as much as male graduates on average, women will now pay about 80% of what male graduates pay. (This is due to female-pattern careers being lower-earning on average.)

So you’ve had the benefit of the education but don’t want to pay for it?
you only pay 6% of anything you earn over £21k

Work more hours and cut down on drinking time. Minimum wage back then was higher and so working a full time job would've got you more than that.

Suppose only working less than half a week did leave you on less money.

Wages were significantly lower too. Probably about 2/3 lower than now. Students can opt to work a full time job now if they want to and live at home while they study. They want to piss it up the wall and party. With that comes costs. Such is life.

A full time job? How many hours of lecturers did you have?

Minimum wage in 2006 £4.45 p/hr for someone 18-21 .
Minimum wage 2012 £4.98 p/hr. 53p increase per hour in 6 years.
Tuition fee tripled in that time
I earned over minimum wage for my age and picked up extra hours where I could. I couldn't work full time 9-5, when would I physically go to uni? I managed £7.5k net per year but that doesn't cover the tuition fees let alone everything else
As for cutting down on drinking I've never been a heavy drinker, so I don't think that was going to make or break whether I could pay for tuition fees, travel and board & food without any sort of debt
Sometimes you need to accept you timed things well and had the ability to achieve something nearly impossible to do a few years later rather than looking down on those who couldn't

I took out a student loan in 1999. Dropped out of uni, and I have no idea how much it is now. I know I repaid a tiny bit for a few months when I did overtime (back when you repaid when you earned more than £15k).

I used to get letters from SLC about updating my info to show I am not working. I did that once (got a stamp from the Job Centre), but since then they have said they have info from HMRC. They also kept saying I could update my details in my online account... but I never had one as I took out the loan before household internet was really a thing. I didn't even have an email address back then.

I am not sure what plan I am on, but it sounds like it will be written off when I turn 65. It is not something I give any head space to if I am honest. I was always under the impression that it was not a real debt in the sense that it affects credit ratings, or that you will be chased for it.

£12600 remaining (4k x 3 was borrowed)
it’s something like £70 a month and then £700 ish on bonus month which makes a difference. Last year, or one year, the payment was £70 and interest was £60 ish and this year I’ve paid £30 more than the interest

Please read martins money who explains how it actually works and why seeing the total you owe is total nonsense.

I found it hugely reassuring

If RPI drops I guess you might start making more of a dent but think you're in a similar position to me where you manage to pay off the interest and a small amount of the balance but not enough to make any significant progress. If RPI drops significantly or our income jumps massively then we may be able to pay back before the write off. If not it may be the case that you need to just think of it as a tax that drops off at 65

So you're going to limit your kids by making them attend a local Uni and live at home rather than get a student loan??? OK then 🙄🙄 & if they want to study abroad or live away from home then that's a no is it?? Jesus Christ. & your kids get a say do they?

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-10155/ might help clear up some of the many misunderstandings on this thread.

This is the direct link to the full report https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-10155/CBP-10155.pdf

plus this https://ifs.org.uk/collections/student-finance

Yeah exactly the same situation and that’s how I think about it but I do get frustrated on the bonus months where it’s a significant amount that I would prefer in my pocket. I think also because I’ve never used the degree.

yes, I looked through previous years statements and when the interest level was 1.1%, I was probably just over the threshold. If I’d been earning what I do now, it may well have been paid off.

I went to a local uni, and still took out a loan. My parents took half of it. Still makes me feel a little bitter a couple of decades later.

Hmmm that doesn't sound right! & have your parents also agreed to pay back the part of the student loan they kept for themselves?

Nope. A few decades later, I did attempt uni again. Didn't take out a loan, but had a small NHS bursary. I was on placement where they lived so stayed there. They wanted half of it, even though it didn't even cover the parking fees for my car... and I was literally just sleeping there. Got my own food etc. Was there 4 days a week.

Telegraph story today about 600000 graduates on benefits https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07/28/more-than-630000-graduates-on-benefits/

Edit URL and put a full stop after the .co.uk

Yes, there have been threads on here about graduates not being able to find work... and that is not just work related to their degree... it is any work.

According to student.loan.calculator on the current plan if you take the full tuition and maintenance loans, and your starting salary is 32k (eg a teacher) you will still be paying 40 years post graduation. And you will have made total payments of £135000, so more than twice the amount of the loans. This is like a mortgage. But should it be?

You should pay it back......it's a loan 🤔

No-one is saying they shouldn't have to pay it back. People are generally complaining about the ridiculous interest rates. Last year I was charged varying levels of interest between 6.25%-8% it basically makes it incredibly difficult to pay off your student loan as even on above average salaries you are basically only paying your interest. Do you not think the interest rate should be more reasonable? How much is your interest rate on your mortgage at the moment, I imagine far lower than the interest rates on student loans. People end up paying far more than the original loan and their debt isnt wiped for 25-40 years depending on when they went to uni. Should we just charge people until they die?

I did my first year at a very well respected university, this being 2022 - 2023 and it was beyond shit. By their own admission they'd scaled back the course content by approximately 25%, and so much of it was left online, following the pandemic, where they'd been forced to go online of course, and were now realising what they could get away with.

Lectures, if you can call them that, were all recorded and had to be watched at home before class. Classroom sessions were only ever two hours at a time - it drove me MAD, as we could easily lose 10 minutes setting up and packing away, plus there was always a 10 to 15 minute break mid way.

First semester I was doing between 8 and 12 hours a week in class, depending on what was going on that week, but 8 was more the norm. Second semester it was even less, as one whole 2 hour class was held online, albeit "live" in real time.

Third semester was a full-time placement away from uni. But throughout all of this, I still managed to do 40-odd hours of paid work a week while at uni, and all weekend while on placement.

Despite the excellent reputation of that uni, it was a total shit-show on my course. I applied to transfer to another anyway, but then something happened in my life which meant I had to defer for two years. I start that new uni in September, and I have high hopes, not least because there are three full days per week in the actual building.

I am in the same boat, I have my degree but I have ended up working in a career where it isn't even needed. My first job after uni was a low paid job so I wasn't earning enough to repay any of it, then I worked part time for a number of years when my child was a baby/toddler. By the time I was earning a decent wage, my student loan balance was higher than when it started , and I've hardly made a dent in the balance because the interest rates are sickening .I pay around £200 a month now, I could do with that extra £200 in my pocket, I also get stung on any bonus payments. I regret my degree, but at the time when I was at school, college and uni was promoted. I don't worry about it though, I know it will get wiped after a length of time it I never manage to repay it.