I tried paying back my student loan a couple of months ago all in one go, just to get rid of it. The woman on the phone said she couldn’t possibly let me do that, the only way I could pay them back was by sending them proof of earnings.
“No, no.” I said, “Surely you don’t need my salary, I want to give you money right now.”
She laughed and said, as if talking to a simple child, “No, it doesn’t work like that. You have to fill out the form. You agreed to that in the conditions of the loan.” She may be correct. I left university in 2002 and I somehow forgot the contents of the small print.
So, I had my contract translated into English and sent it off with the completed form. So far I haven’t heard a peep.
I guess it’s possible that, in actual fact, there are many people out there like me and the problem is not that people are refusing to repay their loans but instead that the SLC is too incompetent to collect it.