How much student loan did you owe when you graduated?

[Theda13]

I owed £21,119 when I graduated in 2020 (Plan 2 in Wales). I had the highest amount of grants (maintenance and tuition fees) due to coming from a low-income household.

What about you?

I owed 71k when I graduated in 2018, plan 2
Borrowed 59k in total and I've paid back 20k so far

Now I owe 84k 🤣🤣

£10k in 2010. Paid off about a year ago. The size of the student debts now are eye watering.

About £28K in 2008. London, four-year degree with full maintenance loan. For the first decade I was barely paying off the accrued interest some years and it was also accruing faster than I was paying it in some (started off on a fairly low income, had two separate six-month periods of unemployment following redundancy) and it was only when I was about 32 that my career had advanced significantly enough that I began making a real dent in it. Finally paid it off a couple of years ago aged 37.

£3k in 1997. I was last wave of people getting a little bit of grant. I protested in the demos and marches with my fellow student union lefties but we were on a hiding to nothing.

i was poor; the grant made a big difference to whether i could afford £1 for a pint in the Student bar.

I miss the days of grants and cheap pints.

sorry for all of you with big debts.

Where are you getting 38k from? Would you also not need a maintenance loan?

Very few teachers graduate with as little as 38k debt, it would also accrue interest while you were a student so even if 38k is what you borrowed the interest would push it up (interest rates were 7%ish while I was a student and I acrued 12k of interest just while being a student)

3 degrees and no loans. First was in my home country and it was free, second was in England and I had a bursary , third was through a scheme where my workplace paid for it. 😅

11k in 2006. Its nearly 20k now and will be written off in 12 years when i reach 65 (i think). Mature student in professional but low paid career. Currently paying £1 a month!

Nothing as I graduated in the 80s. I was about £5 in credit.

However there were no loans then, and I got no parental support so I worked 5 evenings a week through the terms and all holidays in order to survive. No time off before starting graduate job. Flat out all the way through.

My challenge now is to ensure ds leaves uni with as little debt as possible. He works as a lifeguard, and my pension will have to streeeeeetch. 🙁

I googled "What's the max student loan for a student from a low income household in Scotland". The gov website said it is £9400 loan plus £2000 bursary. An honours degree is four years, so £9400 x4 is £37,600. I rounded up!

ETA I was comparing it to my own experience in the early 2000s, so that's why I used the figure for students from low income families, for a fair comparison. Other students with richer parents will of course end up with a different loan amount.

£0
In the 1980s university fees were covered by the government and students had living grants depending on their parents’ financial situation. I don’t remember any/many of my cohort having jobs while studying, other than holiday jobs.
only about 15/20% of school leavers went on to university back then though.

Undergraduate £8000 in 2004. Since paid off.

Owe around £6k for masters currently.

Daughter is around £70k teaching degree and then a medical course masters (I believe some degrees should be free - although has had a small NHS bursary) controversial I know!

£6000 in 1998, paid off in 2005. I was very fortunate.

Zero. 1996. I was quids in as living at home, working pt and given a grant!

£15,000, 2004.

Not me I left school at 16 but DS was about £19/20k, he was the last year of Plan 1, thank goodness as it went up a lot after that

I went to uni in 2005, think the loan was about 4k a year then so around 12k (never actually graduated, dropped out after my erasmus year). Haven't made any repayments, god knows how big my debt is now

My current debt is 86k and I am starting another funded course soon. To hell with it. I have paid nothing back, ever.

Similar, 2k in 98. I got 1700 in my first and second year and 1200 in my third year as grants so only took a loan in my 3rd year. All paid off by 2002.

£9,000 - graduated in 2005.

Nothing for me in the 70s but DS has a Plan 1 loan for his main degree plus a Plan 2 loan for his PGCE which followed on and is the killer. He just thinks of it as a graduate tax.
I think the PGCE should have been free as long as you taught in the UK for a minimum of 5 years. Might help retention and stop people leaving teaching after 2 or 3 years.

Zero, as I was at university in the 80s. Got a full grant, too. We didn't realise how lucky we were at the time.

I also got a full grant for my postgrad, because I did a course that wasn't available in my home county. There was some rule that said no grant if it was possible for you to live at home, but you'd get a grant otherwise, so I did my postgrad as far away as possible. It was less than the undergraduate grant, but it was enough that I could feed myself, pay my rent, run my car and socialise a bit.

£0 in 1999

Same. Don’t remember the exact number but was around £25 k as had an additional year.

£12,000 - graduated in 2006. My mum
remortgaged her house to pay my masters fees, and took a second job to help me pay my rent each month so that I didn’t have to borrow more. I had savings and worked during the holiday to pay my other outgoings.

My grandparents talked about paying my student loan off but died before that happened, so when my mum inherited money in 2019 she gave me the amounts I hadn’t paid back yet so as to get rid of it - about £4,000 at that time.

I feel like my degree was well worth the £12,000 student loan, but I’d be wary of doing it today and coming out of university with debt more in the region of £50,000. I’m not sure it’s a great investment.

£16k in 2002, but was harder in those days.