Shall i take maintenance loan for uni??

Hi, I’m considering whether to apply for a maintenance loan for university. Although I will be taking a tuition loan, I’ll be living at home with my parents. Should I still apply for the maintenance loan? My main concern is the interest rate, as I want to avoid accumulating lots of debt.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated :smile:

Reply 1

Drew SLC

Official Rep

H there,

We are advisors for Student Finance England. We cannot make the decision for you and it would be up to you if you want to apply for the Maintenance Loan.

Thanks, Drew

Reply 2

artful_lounger

Universities Forum Helper

Original post

by Fish1735

I'd suggest reading this article published by SFE: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/8-things-you-should-know-about-your-student-loan--2

While a couple of points are slightly different for people taking out new loans now due to it being a couple of years old, the gist of it is accurate still.

It's not "debt" in the way a bank loan is, it will never directly affect your life unless you actively try and commit fraud by avoiding making repayments when you should be, and normally you don't even need to worry about that as if you're a PAYE worker your company payroll team sorts it out along with your income tax etc. So it's almost impossible to default on anyway.

You will also not make any repayments that you can't afford as you only make repayments when earning over the threshold (which is a decent graduate salary level) and you only make repayments proportional to your income. Also 40 years after you take out the loans they get written off anyway if you have any outstanding loan amount.

There's really no reason not to take it out, it's probably the loan with the best terms you'll ever get. About 10-15 years ago there were scores of articles about how super rich students would take out the loans even when they didn't need them because they could just invest them and make more money than the interest rates anyway.

Not taking out the maintenance loan just makes your own life harder unnecessarily.