Student loan Scotland to pay or not to pay. Moving to America

Jencrystaltips

I'm new here. Apologies if this thread in wrong place or replicated. My son has scottish student loan which is going up quite rapidly. I think it's about £5,000. He left uni about 3 years ago. He is now moving to America to get married very soon. I have looked up he would have to pay about £246 a month once he reaches the £18,....+ Plus mark. Should I pay this off before he goes as he will be reaching that wage with his qualifications quite soon. I have read and re-read Martin's advice but I can't work out what would be best.

wolfehouse

I had a friend in that situation who moved to America and they tracked her down, asking everyone they could identify as connected in the process. I don’t know whether she paid or not, though.

Jencrystaltips

Many thanks. We are definitely going to phone them first.

dogleish

Did he start uni before 2012? If not the repayment threshold figure is much higher than £18k.

In my opinion you shouldn't pay it off. I studied in Scotland, owe about £17.5k and haven't paid back a penny since I graduated in 2014 (I haven't yet earned over the threshold). The interest is only 1.5% (as I started uni in 2010).

It's also important to understand that you when you start earning above the threshold, you are only paying back 9% of your income over the threshold. So there's really no point in you paying it back now, as you will probably reach the age that the debt gets written off at before you have even finished paying it off...

It's also easy to let them know if you are living abroad. You just fill in a form that you can find on their website.

Jencrystaltips

Really good information. Thank you very much.