Student loan - Have I over paid? 14 December 2015 at 9:49PM edited 30 November -1 at 1:00AM in Martin's Blogs & Appearances & MoneySavingExpert in the News 1 reply 2.7K views

bambi1987

Hi there guys,

I have just finished watching Martin discussing student loans. I graduated 5/6 years ago now and have been earning below 21k since then.
Now I was under impression that if I earned anything over 18k I had to pay back my loan, and now I am hearing it is a 21k threshold. I have been having payments taken directly from my wage every month for years and have not questioned it.

I have now got a job paying 26k and know I will have to pay back 9% of anything over 21K which is fine but what about the past 5 years paying loan when my income has been 19k?

I know the student loan needs to be paid but believe me, if I have overpaid any refund would help me massively paying off a few odd outstanding balances.

Does anyone know if a- I have overpaid and b- can I get a refund for all years I have paid when earning under 21k?

Any help much appreciated...:)

Ed-1

bambi1987 wrote: »

Hi there guys,

I have just finished watching Martin discussing student loans. I graduated 5/6 years ago now and have been earning below 21k since then.
Now I was under impression that if I earned anything over 18k I had to pay back my loan, and now I am hearing it is a 21k threshold. I have been having payments taken directly from my wage every month for years and have not questioned it.

I have now got a job paying 26k and know I will have to pay back 9% of anything over 21K which is fine but what about the past 5 years paying loan when my income has been 19k?

I know the student loan needs to be paid but believe me, if I have overpaid any refund would help me massively paying off a few odd outstanding balances.

Does anyone know if a- I have overpaid and b- can I get a refund for all years I have paid when earning under 21k?

Any help much appreciated...:)

No you haven't overpaid as the £21,000 threshold only applies to new students starting courses from Sept 2012 onwards.

Instead of increasing the old £15,000 threshold straight to £21,000, they only started increasing the £15,000 threshold by inflation every year starting in 2012. It's also worth noting that the £15,000 threshold was £10,000 before 2005.

See the following link for all previous thresholds applying to pre-2012 graduates:

http://www.studentloanrepayment.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=93,6678511&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL