Postgraduate Loan Repayment

Repayment

You have to repay any loan you borrow, but not until your income is over the Postgraduate Loan repayment threshold, which is currently £21,000 a year, £1,750 a month or £404 a week.  Repayments will be based on your income, not how much you borrowed.

You’ll be due to start making repayments:

• the April after you finish or leave your course, or
• the April four years after the start of your course if you’re on a course longer than four years

Any loan remaining 30 years after you’re due to start making repayments will be cancelled.

You’ll repay 6% of what you earn over the threshold. So if you’re paid monthly and earn £2,500 per month before tax, you’ll repay 6% of the difference between what you earn and the threshold.

For example:

£2,500 - £1,750 = £750

6% of £750 = £45

The following table shows how much you’ll repay towards your loan:

A student loan repayment will be taken even if you don’t earn £21,000 in a year but earn over the weekly or monthly threshold at any time, for example if you work overtime or get a bonus.

Interest

Interest is charged from the day we make your first payment until your loan has been repaid in full or cancelled. Interest will normally be charged at the Retail Price Index (RPI) plus 3%. RPI is a measure of UK inflation, which measures changes to the costs of living in the UK.

Previous loans

If you’ve had a previous loan from SLC, you’ll continue to repay these loans at the same time. How much you’ll repay depends on when you started your undergraduate course.

Courses that started after 1 September 2012

If you borrowed a loan for your undergraduate course that started after 1 September 2012, you’ll repay 9% of your income above £27,295 towards that loan and 6% of your income above £21,000 towards your Postgraduate Loan.

If you borrowed a Postgraduate Loan for a Master’s course as well as a Doctoral course, the repayment amount due will remain at 6%. This will go towards any loans borrowed for both Master’s and Doctoral courses.

 The table below shows how much you’ll repay towards your loans:

Courses that started before September 2012

If you borrowed a loan for your undergraduate course that started before 1 September 2012, you’ll repay 9% of your income above £19,895 towards that loan and 6% of your income above £21,000 towards your Postgraduate Loan.

The table below shows how much you’ll repay towards your loans: