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Scholarship vs Loan Advice

I'm going to uni, and i want going to take out the student loan with max maintenance.

However, I received a scholarship that would cover the entire tuition loan + provide a maintenance which would also pay for living costs and act as a maintenance grant. I could take this and not take out any student loans, meaning I would graduate debt free.

However, I feel like if I take the loan, I might not pay off all the repayments, as it depends on your salary. So alternatively, I could take out the loan and invest the scholarship money (around 20kish) in an index fund and try to beat the inflation rate on the loan. I'm thinking I might even get much more than the 8% interest rate, as the index funds go up 30% some years, but go down 18% other years.

What do you think the best thing to do is here, invest the money and just pay it all back once I graduate (hoping I make an extra 10k or so with compounding interest) or even if my repayments are low, just try to get it wiped off (I know the chances of that are low). Or do I just not take out any loans and use the scholarship.

(edited 7 months ago)

Reply 1

Butterflywings24

For scholarships, you typically have to use it for its intended purpose as it can form parts of the terms of accepting the scholarship. I also think it is quite cheeky of you to try to have both when there are some students who may not have that luxury and you are essentially trying to manipulate the system. if you are going to accept a loan, I would do the honest thing and return the scholarship so it can go to someone it could really benefit. Who may not be able to as easily get a good job and pay off all their debts in the same way someone else can if they don’t have as many disadvantages or potential for discrimination in the job market