Will I have to start repaying my doctoral loan before I graduate? And for 37 years, not 30?

chrood

I took out a doctoral loan for my master's course which I graduated from last year. I am now working (earning £40-50k per year) so am repaying the loan, however I am also doing a part-time PhD and taking out a loan for this, which is added to the same balance. In theory, repayments should start for the PhD borrowing from April after I graduate, however in practice, if I have already repaid the master's loan amount (it could be hard to know when this is exactly due to the interest and both loans being on the same balance) before graduating from my PhD (which I am expecting to be about 7 years after my master's graduation), will I continue repaying this loan as the borrowing for my PhD has been added to the same loan as my master's loan? And will the repayments continue for 30 years after the April following my PhD graduation? Meaning that I could find myself paying for the PhD borrowing for more than 37 years!!

I don't know whether or not anyone else is in this situation but I can't find any guidance on what happens if you are repaying the loan and adding to it simultaneously in respect to my two questions.

chrood

Also do you think I could repay the master's amount now and stop repayments on this loan until after graduating from my PhD? Or would this be impossible as there would still be a balance and I have already started repaying it.

It really isn't helpful in my situation that both loans get added to the same balance...I'm wondering if it would breach the terms of my doctoral loan if they took repayments for that before graduation though.

MinuteNoodles

Surely the answers are all in the terms and conditions you got when you took out the finance?

On a normal student loan payments aren't taken until the end of the course but you can repay the loan any time.

chrood

MinuteNoodles said:

Surely the answers are all in the terms and conditions you got when you took out the finance?

On a normal student loan payments aren't taken until the end of the course but you can repay the loan any time.

One would hope so but I'm not due that they have thought about my situation. The issue is that the loan that I am taking out now is being added to the same balance as my master's loan but I am already repaying that one.

It would be really interesting if Martin Lewis could have a look at my questions - perhaps he would find them more interesting than the most of the questions that he has answered on ITV's This Morning, which were generally things which could have been answered easily through a quick Google search or by asking me hahaha.

MalMonroe

Hi, all students' situations are different, none are 'straightforward'. I took out another loan once I'd got my undergrad degree so I could do a Masters. They were kept separate. I got ALL the information I needed from the Student Loan company and so I'm not sure why you can't do that?

You will probably not get a response from Martin. For one thing, this isn't even his website any more. For another, he doesn't read these posts and for yet another, he doesn't answer individual queries. Even if he did, he'd probably direct you to the Student Loan company for an answer. 

I think that this is also a question that can be answered by a quick google search. You're a postgraduate student, for goodness' sake!! If you can't work it out, who can?

theoretica

I wouldn't expect your repayments to depend on graduation because of the scope for PhDs to run over, or be paused.  It should be quite straightforward to work out when your payments have, or will have, covered your masters loan.

chrood

MalMonroe said:

Hi, all students' situations are different, none are 'straightforward'. I took out another loan once I'd got my undergrad degree so I could do a Masters. They were kept separate. I got ALL the information I needed from the Student Loan company and so I'm not sure why you can't do that?

You will probably not get a response from Martin. For one thing, this isn't even his website any more. For another, he doesn't read these posts and for yet another, he doesn't answer individual queries. Even if he did, he'd probably direct you to the Student Loan company for an answer. 

I think that this is also a question that can be answered by a quick google search. You're a postgraduate student, for goodness' sake!! If you can't work it out, who can?

I do have an undergraduate loan which is separate but the master's and PhD ones are added to the same balance.

I suppose I could contact SLC, although based on my experience when I have an unusual question for a company, normally whoever reads it misunderstands my question and answers a different one instead, to which the answer is obvious. I am sure that Martin understands the system much better than the average person in customer services there and that is a shame if he doesn't read any of these posts.