[Closed] I just finished paying my student loan

Congrats, can i have a lion bar instead please 🤔.

Congrats.

I remember the first few years where being just over the threshold (with a perfectly normal graduate job so probably a fairly typical experience) meant that you paid out every month but the debt didn't decrease.

can i have a lion bar instead please

It's yours.

I bagsy the Picnic bar. Or the Toffee Crisp if there isn't a Picnic.

I'm waiting for mine to be written off at aged 50.
Sadly only got about 18 months left.

Never actually earnt over the threshold which is good, but obviously bad... 😕

I remember the first few years where being just over the threshold (with a perfectly normal graduate job so probably a fairly typical experience) meant that you paid out every month but the debt didn’t decrease.

Yeah, very frustrating!

Sadly, for those (currently) under the age of about 30, this is quite likely to be the experience for most of their working life. Due to the inflation rate this year, anyone with the average student loan of £45,000 will need to earn somewhere in the region of £87,000 just to cover the interest 🙁

(That will probably ease off again next year tho)

So I can't really whinge too much!

Very similar to me Kayak23, ~20 months until written off, only very rarely after moderate overtime weeks have I paid any off.

Congratulations! It's a nice feeling isn't it?
I paid mine off two years ago, well worth it as the money i saved each month has been paying off my new bike ever since!

when I had mine, I'd not started to pay it off until probably about 2008. this was from my undergrad I finished in 1996. The threshold for payment increased annually, just above my pay.

Wasn't really much thankfully as back then we had grants and I'm not a drunken socialite.

Remember kids: don’t follow your dreams. Get a sensible job. The middle-aged you will thank you for it.

You won't even get an interview for a sensible job without having a degree these days. It's not a good thing (in my opinion) but education is no longer about the requirements for work or life, but has become a a marker to separate you from others in the job market, usually for a job that is below what you think your education deserves.

I left school at 16, and now at 50 I don't have any serious option to leave the job I have, as there is absolutely no way I could get anything close to it because I don't have a degree.

I'd be happy with a penguin btw

You won’t even get an interview for a sensible job without having a degree these days.

Not sure that is 100% true. I moved jobs in Oct (aged 47). I left school after A-levels and have no degree. The role specified a degree but speaking to the recruiter they said it really didn't matter when you have a 30year record and it was not mentioned in the interview. Sure if I was looking to start a new job in an area where I had no history I could understand a degree might be looked for but many employers are also looking for practical experience.

You won’t even get an interview for a sensible job without having a degree these days

My lad's girlfriend is on a £25k pa apprenticeship with IBM while he's coming to the end of his first year at uni racking up debt. She gets a £5k payrise in September for finishing the first year.

I've told him she's a keeper.

Seriously, it was an issue. I did really well in the 90s with no degree but worked my way up to a decent management position by the time I was 30 - got made redundant after a takeover, relocated to follow the now MrsMC and couldn't get an interview for anything comparable as I hadn't got a degree, but kept being rejected for lower level roles as they told me they assumed I'd be looking to move on and up again.

So I did a part time degree while doing customer service jobs and it's been **** all use since, frankly.

I think for youngsters now, apprenticeships can offer a very valid alternative to degrees and not going to uni is less of a barrier than it was.

If you can cope with the bureaucracy, literally, the public sector isn't a bad place to work and develop without a degree, at any age.

Utter tosh! My fella worked for the AA for 12 years, when he decided he'd had enough of working all weathers and days of the year he binned it one day at 5pm and by lunch the next day he had a new job. Same happened again when we moved and he got sick of the commute and 50 hour weeks, half a day later he got a new job and is on a healthy £38k a year. It's the most infuriating thing ever but turns out some skills are much needed and sought after!

Hurrah!
I got a student loan the first year they came out. 4/500£. I went to Egypt for a month and Reading Festival.
Friends kids who didn't go to Uni and did modern apprenticeships are the ones buying houses, amongst my friends anyway.

We'll done!

I am not sure uni offers value anymore either unless you are going to be a doctor or similar. Even if you do a good degree at a good uni you still have to get a really good job and progress well for it to be worthwhile and then you are trapped in some corporate hell.

Sadly, for those (currently) under the age of about 30, this is quite likely to be the experience for most of their working life.

Repayments were all-or-nothing in my day, so once you were over the threshold that was it, you paid back. Now, the repayments are progressive, and if you just go over the threshold you only pay a small amount. It's a better system, tbh (although still utterly shit that we. have to pay at all) and it's not really onerous, in my view. Yes, it's debt, but debt is only bad when it's really difficult to pay back; and in this case it shouldn't be. It's only a number, really.

I think for youngsters now, apprenticeships can offer a very valid alternative to degrees and not going to uni is less of a barrier than it was.

I agree, they are pretty good and a better system than sending 50% of people to uni, I think.

I dunno, I imagine it's good if you want to be an engineer or accountant or something too. That stuff can't really be faked, and I doubt people learn how to engineer steel rope in their spare time, in the same way that they might learn to code.

But despite a *cough* prestigious degree in Music, Acoustics and Recording, I never started making enough to pay back my loan until I sacked it off and got a job in a completely unrelated field, for which my main qualification was that I wrote a tolerably popular blog. I'm not entirely sure what the lesson is here

I left school at 16, and now at 50 I don’t have any serious option to leave the job I have, as there is absolutely no way I could get anything close to it because I don’t have a degree.

Same as my wife but she's 54, seems to manage to get sensible jobs no problem & get reasonably well rewarded for them too.

It’s a better system, tbh (although still utterly shit that we. have to pay at all) and it’s not really onerous, in my view. Yes, it’s debt, but debt is only bad when it’s really difficult to pay back; and in this case it shouldn’t be. It’s only a number, really.

I do actually agree, and I think the current repayment threshold for Type 2 loans of around £27K is really quite reasonable. Although it must be fairly dispiriting to earn that much and see your loan balance increasing by £2000 a year.

I read that the fairest way to increase repayment amounts in a progressive way would be to dramatically increase both the loan amounts and the repayment threshold. So people on the average wage would pay nothing, higher earners would pay more. But the optics of gigantic student debts mean this is somewhat politically unpalatable.

Those who decided student loans were a good idea will be my age. I got a full grant and could claim housing benefit (I'd get back almost all my rent from the LA). I could also sign on over the summer holidays. I finished 3 years owing £100 (all beer based).

Drawbridge well and truly pulled up afterwards.

I got a student grant. If id had to take loans, i wouldnt have went to Uni.

People shouldn't be put off by the fact you have to borrow money. It's not like normal borrowing, so it's not really bad.

All my loans were written off last autumn, been 25 years since my final year.
I paid maybe 2 payments.

People shouldn’t be put off by the fact you have to borrow money. It’s not like normal borrowing, so it’s not really bad.

It's still an extra 9% tax though. Given that some people are upset enough about the 40% tax rate, you can see why they'd be put off by the prospect of 49%. Especially as (since 2012) just being a top rate taxpayer is not necessarily enough to repay the loan.

I got a student loan and hb, sandwich course so my work placements paid pretty well. No debt at end. Got a fab summer job at end and paid for a post grad year in London.

Not doable now, a year in London has to be 30k min, no way can a student summer job bring in 30k, legally.

You won’t even get an interview for a sensible job without having a degree these days. It’s not a good thing (in my opinion) but education is no longer about the requirements for work or life, but has become a a marker to separate you from others in the job market, usually for a job that is below what you think your education deserves.

I left school at 16, and now at 50 I don’t have any serious option to leave the job I have, as there is absolutely no way I could get anything close to it because I don’t have a degree.

Interesting. I found the opposite. I've got a BSc in Physics and it's been of absolutely no value whatsoever at any stage in my career.

It’s still an extra 9% tax though.

Erm, no it's not. Unless you're earning an infinite salary at least....
At which point it's kinda moot 😁

Finished uni in 2006, did not graduate. Only took 2 years worth of loans though (with hindsight I would have been better taking 3 years loans and not had to work so hard to be able to afford to drink eat, then actually being able to pass said degree. Thanks for the tip, parents…)

Managed to get jobs since, one I was with so long I paid off my load in 2019, thanks to them making me redundant, but was a rather specific job that I’ve struggled to get into at other places, despite 12 years doing it, as no degree, but I’m still trying.

It’s still an extra 9% tax though.

Yes, and it's effectively a tax not a loan. You are not actually liable for the money you borrow, unlike other types of loan. They aren't going to come round and take your car and your TV if your income drops. It's not going to make you bankrupt.

Spinning through the comments I don't get how people have got away with not their student loan for so long? I started work a few months after uni and instantly started paying it off. I think it took me about 8-10years to pay it off.

Top humblebrag 😃

Mine was of the type once you started past the threshold it was a 5yr repayment plan. You got the chance to defer once a year if your income had dropped. Threshold was pretty low from memory. £16k a year maybe? 2000ish.

spent my first one on a muddy fox atb and a kayak.

Those who decided student loans were a good idea will be my age. I got a full grant and could claim housing benefit (I’d get back almost all my rent from the LA). I could also sign on over the summer holidays. I finished 3 years owing £100 (all beer based).

Drawbridge well and truly pulled up afterwards.

Quite the opposite actually. Back in the late 80s/early 90s, about 15% of young people went to uni - now it's 50%.

Mine was of the type once you started past the threshold it was a 5yr repayment plan. You got the chance to defer once a year if your income had dropped. Threshold was pretty low from memory. £16k a year maybe? 2000ish.

Huh, dunno what that was. I graduated in 2001 with what we now call a 'type 1 loan'. The repayment threshold at that time was £10K, and it's now around £19K.

But if you dropped below the threshold you stopped paying, it was and is all PAYE based.

I wonder... if one were to wait it out until it gets written off at the age of 50. Could you go back to Uni as a mature student and get another? Obviously to be written off at the age of 100.

I was on the old system so had to start paying from day 1 when I graduated and started work (2002). 5x student loans paid off in seven years. It was a big wack of my take home at the start, not as bad by year 7. And then done!

I must have had a type0 then. Graduated in 98. Pre tuition fees etc. was about £5k all in

Yes, and it’s effectively a tax not a loan.

People keep trotting that out as if it's a good thing, but I see it the other way - it means you can never get out from under it.

Quite the opposite actually. Back in the late 80s/early 90s, about 15% of young people went to uni – now it’s 50%.

I was referring to the grants rather than the access.

There is always the risk that a future government will do something crazy with the loans system because they failed to comprehend not enough people would be paying them off.

The numbers they are pushing through university are too high for individual capability though. The process convinces many people that they are something they are not capable of. Given the widespread lack of engagement I witnessed, for education to be transformative and fulfill the Education Act (if the candidate would benefit from HE, they should be given opportunity to do so) then the door swings both ways.

Ps. With the overall cost of university, and the minimal cost of essay writers (from essays to dissertations), it's obvious to see why there is widespread fraud nowadays. They've tuned it into a consumer product.

I count myself as extremely lucky - I graduated in 1999, so got a modest grant and didn’t have to pay tuition fees.

Having said that, I deliberately chose a uni where I wouldn’t be crippled by the cost of living, and I worked every hour I could in sainsburys during the holidays to try to earn enough to last me through the next term.

As a result, I only left with about 3k of debt.

I am under absolutely no illusion that, if I’d been faced with the prospect of going to Uni a few years later, the thought of leaving with 20k+ of debt probably would have prevented me from going.

In fact, not probably, it definitely would:
I got accepted onto a 2 year masters after Uni, which basically would have guaranteed me a job as an environmental health officer (I know, I was young and stupid… it sounded like a good idea to 21 year old me). I added up what it would have costed me: nearly 30k, and compared that to the starting salary and earning potential of the role, and it just didn’t make sense.

Best decision I ever made.

Agree about apprenticeships.
In the old job when talking to students about job/ uni options, I always told them get an apprenticeship and get paid to go to uni if you can.

Trouble with that is apprenticeship wages are terrible (if the employer sticks to the minimum) but if they can tough it out there is usually a good job and salary at the end.

I’ve got a BSc in Physics and it’s been of absolutely no value whatsoever at any stage in my career.

People see physics and realise immediately you are a total weirdo?

(manages 40 physicists and engineers and accepts this is only partly true 😉 )

The repayment conditions are about to get worse: lowering the income threshold, extending the time until it's written off, and increasing the interest rate.

The average graduate will pay back a huge amount more.

From memory, average debt is £45k and currently average total repaid is £48k. That's about to increase to £100k.

I’ve got a BSc in Physics and it’s been of absolutely no value whatsoever at any stage in my career.

Maybe you just don't realise the advantage it actually infers. With so many jobs now going through agency's and "sites" one of the first ways of dividing applications before a human even reads them is just to bin any where the applicant doesn't have a degree.

We have just replaced a guy in our team, same level as me, one of the requirements was a degree in a science or technology subject. That is now common, it clearly isn't really a requirement for the job on a practical level, but is just a way of separating CV's without having to read 100's and make human judgements.