Paying student loan back early?

[Serin]

DS has his course fees by NHS Wales and gets a £1k non repayable bursary from them as well.
He also has a means assessed loan from SFE of £2k per year.
Am I correct in thinking that he will have to pay this back as a 9% (ish) levy on earnings over £23k (ish) .
If so does anyone know if it would be possible for us to pay it back for him in full.
It seems unfair that he would be paying back as much as someone that borrowed many more tens of thousands.
We are already picking up his 6k per year accom costs. Accom costs more as he is doing nursing and doesn't get the long summer holidays.

Yes, His monthly payments will be the same as someone earning the same who has “borrowed” more. It’s a relatively small deduction at lower income levels (think equivalent of a few coffees a week). That’s why it should be described as a graduate tax or contribution scheme. I’d only be considering paying it all in full if you have that money lying about (if so why did he have to borrow it in the first place?) and if he is earning considerably over the qualifying income (not likely in early years). Why not give him the money for a house deposit instead?

Thanks Vancleef.
We certainly didnt have the money lying about but DH is due quite a large return on a policy soon so we were thinking that we could use that rather than have DH in debt for decades for the sake of a few thousand now.

How to pay off your loan early:
www.gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan/make-extra-repayments

Also from the gov.uk website:
You’ll only repay when your income is over £494 a week or £2,143 a month (before tax and other deductions).

There are worked examples here (current loans are Plan 2):
www.gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan/what-you-pay

Honestly I think there’s way better ways to use a lump sum to help our kids especially re housing

This has literally just been on the Martin Lewis tv show. He said very high earners might consider paying it if they have lots of spare cash and a house deposit. Lower earners shouldn’t pay any of it. The example given was for a Doctor with a loan of £80,000. The small tax payments are negligible really for people on lower salaries. Often the money can be better spent elsewhere.

Thanks everyone, he is fairly unusual in that he will only owe £6k in total at the end of his training.
His DSister owes £48k, there is no way we could clear that for her and I agree that it wiuldnt be a good financial move. However if he ends up paying back as much as her (because of the interest) then that doesn't seem a great move either.

But he won’t be paying back as much as her - assuming he earns sufficiently he will only pay back the £6k plus interest. Your daughter might (but prob won’t) pay back £48k plus interest. Think of it from the perspective of those like your daughter that had to borrow loads. It’s fairer for them that the repayments are linked to income and not the amount owed.

The repayments are in fact quite small and taken at source. What they don’t have in their pocket they won’t miss, like pension contributions. I think you might be overthinking this, and treating siblings differently is never a good look in my book

Yes, the above post is correct, your DS won't be paying the same as others who borrowed more, as your DS will stop paying once his 6k is cleared.

If you can afford to, pay it off for him. At 6% interest from the day it's taken out on, he's wasting money. If I were you I'd set up and agreement where you pay it off for him to prevent him having to pay interest and he pays you back at 9% of his salary above 25k. Although you can't do this for both your children, so is a bit unfair.

I have no issue paying back my loan, I borrowed money so I must pay it back, I just hate that it's so much interest! I'm a decent earner, well above national average but my debt grew greater than my repayments for the first 3 years after graduating. Even now I'm barely making a dent into the balance I actually borrowed (similar to your dd)

My loan is on the old system, so 9% above £15k I think, but even then, at a salary in the mid £30-£40k bracket I'm paying off £63/month. It's not really worth my while paying it off at the moment as I could use the same money for e.g. house deposit. It's more like a graduate tax. He won't be paying the same as someone who borrowed more because he will pay his back far sooner than most. I'm about halfway through my loan repayments now after about 7 years of repaying and my original loan was roughly 3x his