Five things EVERY student and their parents should know 4 September 2017 at 4:08PM in Martin's blogs & appearances & MoneySavingExpert in the news 3 replies 5.1K views

MSE_Eesha

This is the discussion to link on the back of Martin's blog. Please read the blog first, as this discussion follows it.

Read Martin's "Five things EVERY student and their parents should know" Blog.

Please click 'post reply' to discuss below.

iliria

May I ask, is the 30 year write off rule only for recent years students? I went to uni 9 years ago and was the last (fortunate) generation to pay £3000 uni fees per year. I was under the impression that my student loan gets written off after 20 years? Is this not true?

aphty

"I’m going to focus on the most common (and costly) system, English loans for English students who started in or after 2012"

Fair enough - but I do think at some point it would be really helpful to produce an analysis of the situation in Scotland too.

"The amount you borrow is mostly irrelevant – it works more like a tax."

True - but the typical situation in Scotland (luckily for Scottish students) is 'Owe £20,000' not 'Owe £50,000'. And yes as in the example the tax repayment is the same, and the issue is 'whether you’ll clear the borrowing within the 30 yrs before it wipes'. But in Scotland the estimate that only the HIGHEST-earning 23% of graduates will clear is significantly higher due to the lower amount borrowed. Therefore more people will be fortunate enough to want to consider the merits of not paying the 6.1% interest added to the amount owed and instead pay it all off asap.

An analysis of the pros and cons in this specific situation would be really useful

iliria

Quite frankly I think the government needs to change the rules for student loan repayments. They should intruduce a system where people pay something like 5% of total earnings (despite how much you earn).
You only pay for a period of 25years. Anything after that is written off.

That way it ensures that everyone pays something towards their student loan despite what age they start work or what income they have. It is a fairer system. The current system that we have basically penalises the higher earners.