Would you take a student maintenance loan just to save it?

[restfultartan]

If you may need to dip into it or may not to. With funding for all accommodation and food etc coming from limited savings. These will be wiped out by the cost.
A full tuition fee loan will have to be taken anyhow.
To take the max amount, of £8,000 a year and to save it in a good savings account to spend after university.

Be that to put towards any future courses taken, or to even put towards as a house deposit.

I think overall you’d pay more back than you’d save. If the loan interest is approx 9% and you’d be lucky to get 3-4% on savings and that would probably involve locking it away for a bit.

However it’s a good way of amassing a lump sum of money I guess.

When I was at uni many, many years ago I did this. Loan interest was/is at the rate of inflation and interest rates we’re about 9%. I put all the money in the best interest rate account t I could find. Used the money at the end of uni for a house deposit and it had gone up in value quite a bit. 23 years on I still haven’t paid a penny back.

Saving interest rates were about 9% to be clear.

Obviously you don’t get those sort of savings rates now.

I’d take the loan and use it while keeping existing savings for after graduation. I have never been as poor as I was just after graduating from my masters degree. Working temp jobs, travelling to interviews and trying to look smart and put food on the table. I couldn’t even afford bus fares at one point and had to get off the bus at edge zone2 and walk the rest.

The interest rate on the loan is not 9%, although it is c.6%. 9% is the amount of any salary above £25 000 pa you will pay towards repayment of the loan, regardless of how much you borrowed.