The Salary Calculator

Understanding student loans

by Admin

I discovered an excellent article today by Martin Lewis, laying out the facts behind student loans – how they work and how they are repaid. There are a number of common misconceptions about student loans, and this article sets out all the information you would need to understand if you were considering going to university (or sending one of your children). Topics covered include:

• If you take a low paying job after graduation, you’ll only repay a small amount of the loan (or none of it!)
• Monthly repayments under the new loan system are lower than under the previous system
• Your monthly repayments are the same, no matter how high your tuition fees are
• You only start repaying once you leave university and start earning
• You will still be able to get a mortgage

To learn more about all of these and more, check out Student Loans Mythbusting.

You can see how much your student loan will cost each month, and how long it will take to repay, by using the tool on our sister site Loan Tutor.

Tags: Loan Tutor, Loans, repayment, student loan company, student loans

Student Loan repayment threshold

by Admin

Those of you who are repaying your Student Loan through PAYE might have noticed that this month your student loan deduction is a little lower than usual (£5-£6 lower). This is because the annual threshold for student loan repayments increased in April from £15,000 to £15,795.

Income-contingent Student Loans are repaid from the April after you complete your course, at a rate of 9% on any gross income above this threshold. This is similar to the way income tax is calculated – i.e. a percentage of any income above a certain “free” allowance. However, while the tax-free allowance usually increases by a small amount each year, the student loan repayment threshold has been steady at £15,000 since April 2005 – before that, it was £10,000. If you’ve been paying off your student loan for a few years now, you may be surprised to see this change. More information is available from the Student Loan Repayment site. The Salary Calculator is up-to-date with this change to the repayment threshold.

If you are repaying your student loan and you think you might be close to paying it off, this earlier blog post about Student Loan over-repayment may be of interest to you.

Tags: April 2012, debt, Loans, Pay As You Earn, repayment, student loan company, student loans, The Salary Calculator