Student loan repayments are completely unfair

[Sammy900]

I've thought for ages that student loan repayments are a complete rip off. I'm so glad they are now all going under review.

They were mis-sold at the time as a minor "graduate tax" that you'll barely notice and there weren't any other options available to enable low income households fair access to higher education.

I didn't realise then that this would turn into a lifelong debt, with snowballing interest that makes it impossible to clear.

I'm on the original plan 1 which just goes on and on until I'm 65.

The next plan 1 deal after 2006 then decided that 25 years was a fair term (not 47 years!!). Such a huge difference in what will be paid back.

Any other standard loans have much shorter terms.

It was based on the assumption that you would continue to be a low earner for the rest of your life and not move up the career ladder.

I really think that the government / treasury should look into the fairness of the terms of the original plan 1 loans too not just Plan 2.

I think you can submit your case to your local MP and with the treasury committee if you feel that you are paying back a student loan on unfair terms and now is the time to do so.

I really hope this gains momentum and something can be done about it finally.

What are your thoughts?

That already happens with the golden hellos but no-one would last 5 years. So I think it could work!

5 years is not long enough. This is £40,000 worth of fees! What about everyone else we value! What about less well paid in other areas of work? We should not divide society like this.

Some of them are, especially the plan 2 which is the one mainly in the news. DS was very fortunate to have missed this by a year, he went in 2011 so was on plan 1 which wasn't bad at all and the fees were less as well.

They weren’t ‘misdild’ as a student tax - that’s all Martin Lewis’s doing who has always encouraged them. Surely you looked into the implications of going in to debt? Perhaps not so much as an 18 year old but mine is only too aware of the mounting debt. I am astonished when I read on WIWIKAU how ignorant some parents are: that interest is charged from the day the loan is paid out, even the fact that university costs so much money in the first place!
I went to uni in the USA so uni here seems very cheap to me. There people are well aware and if possible start saving from the day their kid is born, and there too there are loans that are being paid off decades later.
Whst do you suggest? Universities cost more money than they get from home students - they do rely a lot on overseas students. The government is hardly awash with money.
If I had the money I’d pay for my DD without a loan.

How else would you have funded your university course?

I mean it's fine to take that attitude but don't act surprised when there's no teachers because no-one's prepared to go into debt AND do a challenging job AND never earn enough to pay it off AND not to be able to move out of a house share.

That's the position younger colleagues are in and I feel sorry for them.

Except didn’t you only pay like £9k for an entire degree on plan 1? My Plan 2 was £47k when I left and i now owe £67k. I’ve been paying it for 8 years and paid back about £12k.

I'm Plan 1, graduated in 2013. So far I've paid the grand total of £1700 off. I'm now in the position of barely covering my bills. That money going out every month to chip away at a debt I'll never manage to clear because of the interest is frustrating.

You get sold the dream of a degree resulting in a highly paid career and the loan repayments being a small "tax" at an age when you're unlikely to understand the real consequences.

If you are 45 you will have paid a fraction of what students today pay it's just not comparable.
People often graduated with barely 10k of debt back then - now £50-60k is unavoidable given that £30k alone is just fees then it's pretty hard to live on less than £8-10k per year given high rental costs and high food costs. Students these days have to absolutely scrimp to manage and parents typically have to chip in hundreds a month on top too.

@CleanQueen123 You are not expected to clear it though are you? Never ever been an expectation. You just pay a bit of your salary. If you didn’t get a great job after your degree, so bit it, but lower earners really don’t pay much and it has no relationship whatsoever to the amount borrowed.

But I think that's my point, if it's not expected that you'll clear the debt, why make it a loan? I'm currently paying about £150/month which would really make a difference to my finances if I wasn't.

@CleanQueen123 Of course it has to be a loan and not free money! How are universities to get money? From everyone and every entity paying tax? For 37% of school leavers and others who just feel like going? It’s not sustainable to not charge everyone unless uni numbers going are drastically reduced. In today’s world, £1800 a year is a decent sum but would you have the job you have without your degree? Probably not. We could turn the clock back and have 20% going. Much cheaper to run the system then. Costs came with massive expansion of the sector and we cannot have it all.

Any loan scheme where the money is not expected to be fully paid back should be viewed with suspicion IMO. It's the most terrible mess, and they have managed to make a system intended to benefit millions of people feel like a soul- destroying burden.

I read that all your debt is counted as a government asset, so don't expect them to sort it out any time soon.

Massively unfair, I agree. The interest on plan 2 is a rip off. Outrageous!

I took the very first student loan in 1996 i think it was, the very first time they were offered. I deferred repayment every year because I earned under the threshold (tefl teacher abroad) and after about 20 years they wrote it off. I never paid any of it. But it sounds like they have become awful debt traps since.

I had a half loan half grant thing in 1995, think it was the last or last but one year of grants. So loans were around before 96.

@sillyrubberduck It’s still tied to earnings though. Low earnings, low repayments.

@TonTonMacoute Why? Do you think students should borrow at commercial rates with commercial conditions attached? It’s the tax payer who cops for the loans up front and the non paid off loans. I agree terms should not be changed but the system is not suspicious. Millions have the loans and earn better money because they have a degree. If we want a return to far fewer going to university, it would be unbelievably cheaper for everyone.

Just to repeat and be ultra boring: NO- ONE is required to pay off the loan! Teachers start off not paying much per annum on payments. Like everyone else, when they move up, they pay more. It’s not a worse job than others have at all. Heads can earn well in excess of £100,000. Like most careers, there’s a prune to pay early on but many I know love teaching and certainly love the holidays. I think golden hellos should be added to the loans if teachers don’t stay. It’s just wasting money.

I don't want to make the thread about teaching (because loans are an important topic to discuss and there are plenty of threads about teaching) but the loans are a government backed system, as is the state education system, and the latter is running at a.high level of vacancies so clearly the terms and conditions aren't THAT attractive.

I enjoy teaching myself, but when I got my degree in the 90s it was cheap, and I own my house.

I don’t have an issue with my three children having their loans. They wouldn’t have been able to go to university without them. But what all the discussions have highlighted for me is that my DD is paying back two separate loans -UG and PG - and having recently retired now is the time for me to pay off the Master’s loan for her and put her on the same footing as my two DS with just their UG loans. The Master’s loan is obviously smaller and with lump sums manageable for me.

If like me, you do feel that you were mis-sold a student loan or that it has unfair and ridiculous terms and interest rates / conditions and want your situation to be reviewed on an individual merit. There are a few things you can do I've learned...

Email your local PM and tell them and ask them to represent you and bring it up for debate in parliament or refer you to the PHSO

Email the Treasury Committee

Appeal to SLC - has anyone ever done this?? What was the outcome? I'm tempted

Complain to SLC - again has anyone ever done this - what did they say? I suspect currently we wouldn't get far with them - but parliament maybe as its all up for review again and they've admitted its a mess

There are a few government petitions out there to share amongst your peers and sign

"Write off all Plan 1 student loans after 25 years"

and others have a look

Does anyone have any other advice? Interested to hear about people who have complained or appealed to SLC

another one:

"Abolish interest charges on student loans"

I've just found this too from the treasury committee. Deadline April 14th

To share your experience with the Treasury Committee's inquiry into student loans, you can use their official online survey.

• Official Survey Link: Your experience of student loans – This 10-minute questionnaire is specifically for individuals to share how loan terms (like the age-65 write-off) affect their financial planning.
• Submission Deadline: You must complete the questionnaire by 5:00 pm on Tuesday, 14 April 2026.
• Who can participate: Anyone aged 16 or over with personal experience of considering, taking out, or repaying a student loan is encouraged to contribute.
• UK Parliament +4

I have emailed my Mp and filled in the questionnaire.
I am annoyed how it affects women. Let me know if you have any luck with the other avenues.