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.

I’m not sure anyone is saying it’s free money. What I’m saying is that it’s not the “burden” that some think it is which, sadly, means some potential students are being put off higher education. Those of us who got state funded higher education might see this as a problem. I’m saying based on my own kids experience, it really isn’t an issue for them.

This put things into perspective. Thank you. I just hate the thought of those cumulative interest, but if you have no choice.

We are paying all the fees for our kids. We're medium-higher earners now, with a joint pre-tax income of about 170K, though for many years I was very part-time so earned none-much lower. Currently my pension and car scheme keep me just over the threshold of the higher rate tax. DH has been a higher rate tax payer for 20+ years.

We both have good pensions, but we also decided early on to save for our kids' futures. We are in NI so fees are currently £4250 (or something like that!). We are paying all the tuition fees, accommodation costs and a small monthly allowance (£120ish) - the kids do/will top this up from money from part-time jobs. We have saved enough to cover this and to help them with a house deposit, in fact we've already started putting the max yearly amount into a LISA for them, in addition to other savings in our names.

While we are very fortunate to be able to do this, it was a deliberate decision and has only been possible because we have always lived well below our income. We bought a biggish house years ago, stretching ourselves a bit at the time but haven't moved since, though at times I've been tempted! We don't have fancy cars, we don't have expensive holidays or buy expensive furniture or clothes. I know that a lot of DH's colleagues, earning the same amount, haven't made the same choices - they have nicer houses, have had significantly more expensive holidays and in general their spouses haven't (eventually) worked/earned as much as I now do. Their kids took the tuition fee loans and in some cases the minimum maintenance loans they were eligible for.

All this is a very long way to say that while many families have no choice, and many see it as a graduate tax/something you'll never pay off, the possible impact of paying an additional 9% tax every year for decades was a burden we didn't want our kids to carry. We have a nice life and haven't suffered, but we have definitely and deliberately lived a lower 'standard' of life in terms of housing, holidays and cars compared to our income - I think it's worth it.

Thank you all.

I am discussing with DH that we pay for fees and accommodation and lend DD the money for maintenance which she can top up with part time work when time allows it; she will do an engineering degree and will be busy. We may have to cut down on holidays.

I was very flippant about my loans - undergrad and postgrad .
i now earn £5k a month (I’m 50) and get less than £3k take home after taxes and student loans.
my student loan payments is around £300 a month, and the interest just keeps on stacking up so I’m actually paying around £130 a month just in interest. It feels like a burden!

We pay for our kids but have done it as an interest free loan in respect of the tuition (we fund the rent and living costs). In theory they will each owe us c£30k in tuition fees and can pay us back when they are earning. It’s a halfway house.

Might be worth a look just to put things in a more evidence based context

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/student-loans-and-interest-rates-faqs/

plus don’t forget the percentage who have their undergrad tuition fee paid in full (by parents or others) is a small single digit percentage of all UK undergrads.

But ever-increasing

@VanCleefArpels, those in their 20s might not think about it much, but as they get older, and want to buy houses / have children / have some kind of decent life, I reckon they’ll start to think about it more.

Uni in the 2000s. I did a 4 year degree then 1 year PGCE.

I think the total in the end was close to £25,000. I didn't pay fees due to low family income so it was for accommodation and living costs. Finished the first degree in 2008 and PGCE in 2011. Paid off in full in about 2018.

But someone like you ACIGC, on the latest plan, would have a very large debt which will grow. The decent but not brilliant teacher wage will mean they only get on top of the capital and balance at the back end of 40 years by which time they may have paid back twice the amount they borrowed. Mid earners with full loans are worst hit.

We’ve just paid our kids’ loans off. DD had 2 years of loans and DS had 1. DD is doing a 5 year course (vet med) and DS a 4 year course (incl placement year). We have decided to pay for all of it going forward.
We are in a fortunate position to be able to. We have just paid off our mortgage so have no debt whatsoever.
DD would have ended up with £70k of debt and DS about £45K. As they are on the latest loan scheme the interest rate is quite high. The debt would affect their ability to get a mortgage etc so we decided to pay it off.

That’s a really interesting link, thanks @boys3

As an aside (to that link). It’s worth mentioning that the interest rate does actually affect the total repayments, as a higher interest rate will grow the outstanding balance much quicker, so it will take longer to pay off (as the monthly repayments aren’t impacted by a change in interest rates, so will stay the same). So in a lower-interest scenario, someone may have ‘paid off’ the total loan after 30 years, whereas in a higher-interest scenario, it may only be paid off after 40 years, or not paid off within the 40 years.

Exactly, people always talk about the low earners never paying it back or the high earners who can afford it and pay it back quickly, but most graduates will be in the middle earners range. They are hit the hardest in terms of amount of interest paid, and length of time of repayments. Great if it's written off after 30 or 40 years, but not if you've repaid much more than you originally borrowed in that time.

As with most things, people need to look at their individual circumstances and run the numbers.
I graduated years ago with 15k student loan. Middle earner, I worked out if I paid the minimum,I would pay it off within the 30 years but with a huge amount of interest on top. So I concentrated on paying it back early before buying my 1st property.

All very true.

I’d also add that those of us who did benefit from free (to us) university education also had a base rate of tax of over 30%, as compared with 20% today. 33% when I graduated. Personal allowance was just over half in real terms of what it is today. Obviously fewer grads, around 14% headed to Uni when I was there, and a much more significant grad salary premium. Flip side housing to earnings ratio much lower back then making housing far more affordable than it is for today’s graduated.

it is a lot more nuanced and as VanCleef’s post suggest it seems parents have a lot more angst about it than those newly graduating.

DD started her first degree in 2013 when fees were £9k per year. . Then after a year working as a HCA, did graduate medicine. So 4 years of £9250 fees. With the maintenance loan even without interest it must be £100k at least. Have no idea but luckily did not impact in her ability to get a mortgage which was her biggest concern.

cant imagine she’ll ever pay it off even if she achieves her aim of becoming a consultant (another 4 and a bit years all being well) She’d like to have children at some stage too, so there’ll be a period when she doesn’t pay anything.

like a PP she sees it as a graduate tax rather than a debt.

About £85,000 on graduation. 3 years later is over £100,000. They are a doctor. Will repay over £250,000 by the time the 30 years is up. And no, they won't earn enough to pay it off early as the way jobs are going for doctors they'll be lucky to have one (so at least don't have to pay loan off !).

Shocking. It is sad there is not better support for education in this supposed advanced country

@mumsneedwine They will get jobs in the end and many grads have to wait for the well paid role! Every scrap of evidence shows doctors are higher paid than most and don’t take 30 years to pay off the loans. However I’d stop advising dc to be doctors if I was you if it’s so bad. Looks like many dc still want to train and this is just about the only degree where, historically, there’s been no competition for jobs. Look at a law degree and see how many of them aren’t getting jobs in that field.

I am abroad and agog at the debts. Dd was eligible for home fees in UK, but elected to stay in Belgium for her degree. Tuition 800 euros a year. We paid accommodation of c. 6k per year but technically she could have stayed home if we couldn't afford it. She was offered a Master's at Edinburgh but tuition, even home fees, was £13k! She didn't want even that debt so went to Leuven instead. 1k.

@OhDear111 other countries are available to UK qualified doctors. And many of them are forced abroad to work. Wish it wasn't true but many UK Grads do not have jobs and there is a massive shortage of consultant jobs.
In the past what you said is true. Now it's not.

That is great. I feel for young people in the UK these days.

There are currently 2,000+ unemployed qualified GPs. Some are driving Ubers. Google it if don't believe me 🤷‍♀️. All happened in last few years so no one knew this was coming. They won't even start touching the capital until earning over £100,000 which is 4-5 years after becoming a consultant (if they can). Meanwhile the interest continues to grow at 7% and the debt grows larger every year.

The interest on the loans for 2026 starters is 3.5% though isn't it? So the same as inflation. It's worth considering putting £9500 a year in a high interest account and seeing whether they want that money for a house deposit at the end of 3 years...

No wonder people move abroad and dont pay.