Overseas Student Loan Repayment Threshold

KathJohnson

Hello,

I have a British passport but live and work in the Republic of Ireland. I lived here from 1996 - 2013, returned to England for university from 2013 to 2016, then moved to Dublin. Due to being a British citizen I was able to access the full student loan system and borrowed as much as I could. While the income threshold to begin paying back student loans in the UK was £21000 the whole time I was in uni, it was £29400 if you lived in the republic of Ireland. This was due to the fact that it's more expensive to live here so they take into account cost of living when calculating how much I should repay.
Suddenly this year they all dropped considerably only now the threshold for Ireland to £14225, and the UK is £17775. That's a £3225 drop for the UK and a massive £15175 drop for Ireland. Any ideas why it's dropped so much or why it's now lower than the UK? It's definitely still more expensive to live here. I feel like it should be at least equal to the UK threshold.

I appreciate any help I can get with this.
Cheers,
Kathleen

jonesMUFCforever

2 things spring to mind - come back to UK and work here or you played the system to get the loans now it has bitten you on the bum.
Can you not get a loan in Eire to pay this off?

Ed-1

KathJohnson wrote: »

Hello,

I have a British passport but live and work in the Republic of Ireland. I lived here from 1996 - 2013, returned to England for university from 2013 to 2016, then moved to Dublin. Due to being a British citizen I was able to access the full student loan system and borrowed as much as I could. While the income threshold to begin paying back student loans in the UK was £21000 the whole time I was in uni, it was £29400 if you lived in the republic of Ireland. This was due to the fact that it's more expensive to live here so they take into account cost of living when calculating how much I should repay.
Suddenly this year they all dropped considerably only now the threshold for Ireland to £14225, and the UK is £17775. That's a £3225 drop for the UK and a massive £15175 drop for Ireland. Any ideas why it's dropped so much or why it's now lower than the UK? It's definitely still more expensive to live here. I feel like it should be at least equal to the UK threshold.

I appreciate any help I can get with this.
Cheers,
Kathleen

There are different repayment thresholds for different tranches of loans.

Loans taken out for courses starting before 2012 have a repayment threshold of £17,775 until 5th April 2018

https://www.slc.co.uk/media/latest-news/change-of-interest-thresholds.aspx

and then it will increase by inflation to £18,330 from 6th April 2018 until 5th April 2019

https://www.slc.co.uk/media/latest-news/changes-to-interest-rates-and-thresholds-1.aspx

Loans taken out for courses starting from 2012 onwards have a repayment threshold of £21,000 which is currently frozen.

Overseas thresholds are calculated annually based on the latest costs of living index for the relevant country in relation to the UK threshold.