Total student loan when child finish university?

[luckybees]

What was you or your child student loan total when you finished uni? How long was the course? What year you finished? Did you borrow fees and maintenance? Have you/your child paid it already?

DH and I were lucky not to pay for university fees; not from the UK and lived at home so didn’t get in debt.

Plan 2 stops after 30 years…

I agree. It is a massive burden for a long time

Because they want you to continue paying interest forever? If you make repayments it will reduce your debt and future repayments

My DC each did three years in London and then one of them did a Masters. So their loans are £65 to £75k I guess.

They don’t actually consider it as debt. Just as graduate tax. Don’t worry about it.

It’s not free money to the tax payer.

My son starts 2026. We’ve decided just to pay it.

I’m life limited and I, selfishly, want to see him start out without debt. I don’t see the point of starting life with tens of thousand debt when you don’t have to and a tax of 9% on the loan. But I am in an unusual position which most will (hopefully) not be in.

For DD it will be about £42k. 3 years tuition fee plus mimimum maintenance. We paid her rent and she worked throughout (weekly hospitality job, pub job when home and summer internship) to top up her funds.

The thing to remember is that student debt isn’t like any other sort of debt. It doesn’t count against your credit rating or towards any other life decision. It’s just like an extra tax you pay back until either it’s paid off or it gets written off

@Jamesblonde2 Totally agree! I said that earlier when I said less than 50% pay off the loan! The debt is around £250 billion fairly soon. This is why we need to think again about the number going to university.

It’s not a “massive burden” to the people paying it though. Honestly they hardly think about it once they are earning. It’s just another deduction on the payslip. We could have a different conversation about the burden on the taxpayer caused by few of these loans ever being paid back but that’s another issue. Far better our system of contribution that the US system where it really is a debt that has to be paid regardless of earnings. That’s a true burden.

@VanCleefArpels The government doesn’t see it as another issue because this is why loans are over 40 years. They expect to see 75% plus paying them off.

It’s about £45-50k in loans for a standard 3 year degree unless you are low income as they cap what you can borrow based on parental income. One of my DD’s still owes £70k, don’t ask, unlikely to pay back, the other had the minimum for fees and living costs and has already paid back over half in 3 years, wants it paid off before she buys a house and has kids, her dp is in a similar position, she doesn’t pay rent though (military)

I usually love Martin Lewis / MSE, but I just can’t get behind this idea of thinking about student loans as a graduate tax - a 10% tax for the rest of your working life is massive deal.

I paid off my student loans, but my younger colleagues are being completely scuppered by theirs - they’re paying them but they’re still increasing every month.

OP, remember what happened with the old loan plans is irrelevant to your DC. 40 as opposed to 30 years term makes a massive difference. The current plan is designed so that 75% pay it off in full, and of that 75% many will pay massively more than they borrowed. A teacher on full loans might pay over double the amount borrowed.

@VillaOfReducedCircumstances It’s clearly a tax as it’s a % of earnings.

I don’t think the amount alters every month. It’s a % of earnings and they don’t go up every month.

With around 37.% of school leavers going to university, the state needed students to be responsible for paying as most get an uplift in salary over those who don’t go. Thats not universal of course but the low paid didn’t want to continue paying after the huge university expansion of 1992 and beyond. It wasn’t sustainable so student loans came in.

The problem is it will effect im aure the amount of mortgage you can get as that is calculated on available income.

@OhDear111, apologies - its not so much the ‘think of it like a tax’ narrative that I disagree with, it’s the bare bones fact that this will reduce someone’s income by 10% for their whole working life, and that they might never pay off the loans. So, the thing that I disagree with is that this scenario is OK in any sense.

It it doesn’t matter to the payer if they don’t pay it all off though does it? That’s for the taxpayer generally to bear.

I graduated in 2008- did 5 years at uni. My tution fees were paid for by the NHS. I came out with 15,000 student loan. Finished paying it back in 2020. I only had the basic loan (and worked,). Parents had 3 of us at uni and were asked to give us 8,000 each. They earned 41,000 between them so gave us about £150 every 3 months (all they could afford until our final year where they gave us that a month)....

It doesn't really matter as you pay the same monthly amount for a £10k loan as a £50k loan.

DD did a masters, so has two different loans on two different terms. Her debt is therefore quite large, but she isn't earning much at the moment so we don't worry about it tbh.

@VanCleefArpels, but the 10% reduction in salary, potentially for the whole of their life, is for the graduate to bear. It isn’t insignificant by any means.

On the mortgage front, we decided to give the DD's sums of money instead of funding uni though. They then get a better LTV ratio, and better terms on their mortgages.

10% above a threshold, only when earning. Honestly among my two 20 something kids’ friend groups no one talks about student loan repayments, it’s completely not an issue. They never have the money so they don’t miss it - they live on whatever the take home pay is after deductions for their loans, pension, other taxable benefits. It’s just a line on the payslip.

It’s totally incorrect to think of student loans as a tax. It is not a tax as for students with more well off parents or grandparents, it is perfectly possible to be absolved of the tax by paying their fees and for those people to have, in their adult life, much more money in their pocket for all the other expenses of life, mortgages, pensions, children etc.

A better way of doing it would be to make it a genuine tax. So everyone who benefits it from a university education pays it but it is set at a much much lower %.

It’s not free money!

It is the student voluntarily signing up to a higher / enhanced income tax burden for 40 years. Income tax rates are such a political hot potato - there are huge pushbacks if ever govts try to increase income tax, and this is a large income tax increase, by stealth, however a lot of people seem to talk about it as ‘free money’. I don’t quite understand it. I think the majority of people who think that they will never earn much so won’t pay much, will find their wages increasing over the next 10-20 years, and I imagine the threshold will stay the same, so even staying in the same job for decades people will end up paying more.

Without student loan, income tax thresholds and rates currently are:

Up to £12, 570 - 0%

£12,571 to £50, 270 - 20%

£50,271 to £125,140 - 40%

over £125,140 - 45%

Taking the student loan, income tax thresholds and rates currently are (threshold changing in April 2026 to £25k):

Up to £12,570 - 0%

£12,571 to £24,999 - 20%

£25,000 to £50,270 - 29%

£50,271 to £125,140 - 49%

over £125,149 - 54%

I understand that with fees and living costs, a lot of students will have to take loans, so do not have a choice. But it is most definitely not ‘free money’..!