When do Student Loans Co announce Interest Rate for 09/10 ?

farso

Hi everyone.

Keeping an eye on this. Inflation down to 0.1%, but CPI is still at 3%, who bets we get given the CPI rate this year eh??

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?ID=19

Sol00

It's always bsed on the RPI and at the moment it's not even based on that due to the low base rate.

farso

Sol00 wrote: »

It's always bsed on the RPI and at the moment it's not even based on that due to the low base rate.

Always as in for the past year? Before that it was based on CPI. It wouldnt surprise me if they changed it again to suit themselves is what I was saying.

Numenor

farso wrote: »

Always as in for the past year? Before that it was based on CPI. It wouldnt surprise me if they changed it again to suit themselves is what I was saying.

No it wasn't. The 2007-08 rate was 4.8%, based on March 2007's RPI measure.

BigJonnyB

farso wrote: »

Always as in for the past year? Before that it was based on CPI. It wouldnt surprise me if they changed it again to suit themselves is what I was saying.

student loans have always been based on RPI, since they were introduced in the 90s. It just became an issue for the current year, as RPI was so high.

morg_monster

RPI is now 0.1%, the thinking is that it will go negative next month, which conveniently is March. Obviously that change won't then kick in til September but in the mean time as others have said we are on the bank base rate plus 1%, at the moment this is 1%+1% = 2% but is likely to go down again in the next few months until it gets to 0, then we will be on 0+1=1%, and then come september it'll go down to <0% with march RPI...
there's not been a concrete answer about whether negative interest rates will be used or whether they will just peg it at 0%. I reckon they will peg it at 0 as negative interest rates are generally difficult to work with - their systems probably can't even handle negative percentages with their current programming.

Some people say that once we get to 0% and the banks start "quantative easing" / printing money interest rates (RPI and base rate) will start to rise again and may go pretty high. So I'm just glad of a year where my loan won't be increasing .. (am a postgrad student for the next fewyears so not paying anything off at the moment!)

BigJonnyB

Remember that the interest rate will be based on the March figure - released in April - not the February figure released in March. This will most likely result in an even bigger negative figure.

Lokolo

Yes it is rather irritating people do not read the news carefully.

The 0.1% RPI is for January, not February, so there is still 2 months before Marchs RPI is released.

neas

hopefully ;P

farso

BigJonnyB wrote: »

student loans have always been based on RPI, since they were introduced in the 90s. It just became an issue for the current year, as RPI was so high.

You talk rubbish. They are NOW based on RPI, but WERE based on CPI. I think I need the help of Zippy and George here. Please research before trying to argue a subject. Must we have inane people posting?

Link: http://www.moneymakingstudent.co.uk/2008/07/21/student-loan-interest-rates-to-fall/