20th December 2010, 12:23 PM
Kel Wrote:Beware that the age-related cut-off point for loan repayments is different depending on when you started higher education and won't apply to those starting degrees after 2005. According to Moneysavingexpert.com http://http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/...repay#when :
* Start 1990-1997 if under 40 - Loan wiped 25 years after the start date or when you reach 50, whichever is soonest.
* Start 1990-1997 if 40 or over - Loan wiped when you reach 60
* Start 1998-2005 - Loan wiped when you reach 65
* Start 2006-2010 (excl Scotland) - Loan wiped 25 years from the first April after graduation (when you were first due to repay)
* Start 2006-2010 (Scotland only) - Loan wiped 35 years from the first April after graduation (when you were first due to repay)
...so any of my loan still outstanding will be wiped when I'm 73. I assume the government will be pleased to take repayments out of what will laughingly be termed my "pension" up to that point.
Interestingly (no pun intended), advice from this site is that you shouldn't pay off student loans early.
Thanks for putting this up. I was wondering how the length of repayment affected students who had already graduated, but I couldn't find anything about it. Looks like I'm still going to be paying until I retire.
And Kel, I wouldn't worry about student loan payments being taken from your pension. By the time you reach that age, they'll have put the retirement age up, so you'll still be working.
Quick question - are the repayment levels (the 9% of anything over ?21,000, or whatever it is) set for everyone, or just for people taking out new loans? Not that I'm paying anything back atm, but I'd hate to reach the magic repayment limit and suddenly find myself paying back double what I had to in the past.