Repaying Student Loans 2009/10 guide discussion

Poolie

SLC are becoming more effective at tracing people overseas using tracing services, debt collection agencies and social websites (people post of facebook and easy to search).

Basically SLC are trying to get the message across, that going overseas is no excuse for no repaying the money the student borrowed.

SAHMsince08

Hi I have a question about repaying my student loan.

I took out my loan in 2004 and since leaving uni I worked for a year (at under £15K) and since then I have become a stay at home Mum. It makes no financial sense for my family for me to go back to work (childcare costs etc) so certainly for the forseeable future I will not be earning anything.

Once I do get a job I am pretty sure it will be part time while my child (or children if there are anymore!) are at school, so there is no chance at all I will be earning the threshold for repayments for a very long time.

The thing that concerns me is that I will keep getting interest added to the loan for years and years, so once I do start earning over the threshold i will have a massive massive debt to pay off.

I will admit I get very concerned when the statement arrives from SLC showing how much my debt has grown, knowing I have no way of paying it off.

I know the loan will be written off once I get to 65, but this seems so far in the future and such a long time to be burdened with this debt.

I guess I'm just after some reasurrance that it's OK to basically not repay my loan, let it build up and then allow it to be written off?

Will the debt I have effect the future re getting a mortgage? Or any other loan I might need in the future?

Is there any circumstances that the SLC stop adding interest (I should be so lucky???) ?

Thanks for any help and advice.

Oldernotwiser

SAHMsince08 wrote: »

Hi I have a question about repaying my student loan.

I took out my loan in 2004 and since leaving uni I worked for a year (at under £15K) and since then I have become a stay at home Mum. It makes no financial sense for my family for me to go back to work (childcare costs etc) so certainly for the forseeable future I will not be earning anything.

Once I do get a job I am pretty sure it will be part time while my child (or children if there are anymore!) are at school, so there is no chance at all I will be earning the threshold for repayments for a very long time.

The thing that concerns me is that I will keep getting interest added to the loan for years and years, so once I do start earning over the threshold i will have a massive massive debt to pay off.

I will admit I get very concerned when the statement arrives from SLC showing how much my debt has grown, knowing I have no way of paying it off.

I know the loan will be written off once I get to 65, but this seems so far in the future and such a long time to be burdened with this debt.

I guess I'm just after some reasurrance that it's OK to basically not repay my loan, let it build up and then allow it to be written off?

Will the debt I have effect the future re getting a mortgage? Or any other loan I might need in the future?

Is there any circumstances that the SLC stop adding interest (I should be so lucky???) ?

Thanks for any help and advice.

Student loans don't affect your credit rating in any way and they don't increase in real terms because the interest rate is fixed at the rate of inflation.

I'm on the older style loans and mine will be wiped out this year and I can honestly say it hasn't worried me at all.

SAHMsince08

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

Student loans don't affect your credit rating in any way and they don't increase in real terms because the interest rate is fixed at the rate of inflation.

I'm on the older style loans and mine will be wiped out this year and I can honestly say it hasn't worried me at all.

Thanks for your reply. Do you mind me asking, how long then did you have your student loan debt for?

Good to hear they don't affect credit rating so that's not something to worry about.

Poolie

The older style loans were for 5 years repayments or 25 years. The post 1998 pre 2006 written off when you reach retirement.

cakinwande

Im interested to know if I can pay any amount I want? I'm paying about £100 a month and wonder if I can reduce this a little?

MrsManda

cakinwande wrote: »

Im interested to know if I can pay any amount I want? I'm paying about £100 a month and wonder if I can reduce this a little?

If you have an income based loan you will pay 9% of everything you earn over £15,000 a year (or over £1250 a month). It's in your T&Cs which you signed when you got the loan.

Oldernotwiser

SAHMsince08 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply. Do you mind me asking, how long then did you have your student loan debt for?

Good to hear they don't affect credit rating so that's not something to worry about.

My debts were from 1996 to 1999 - I was over 40 when I took them out.

Poolie

cakinwande wrote: »

Im interested to know if I can pay any amount I want? I'm paying about £100 a month and wonder if I can reduce this a little?

Cakinwande,

Can you please advise what type of loan you have? Pre 1998 or Post 1998?

kannykat

Hi, I can't find any information on my repayment situation, so hoping someone can advise!

I started a uni course in 2002, and dropped out after a year. This loan is the type where it runs until you're 65.

I then started a new course in 2006 (dif uni) which is the new style loan, which is wiped out after 25 years.

I thought that the two would be treated under the separate conditions, but I noticed a post earlier in this thread (no 115) that says the conditions for the entire loan will be based on when you started uni.

Is this correct? If so, could someone please point me in the direction of this information on a govt/slc website?

Thanks!