Staring down thousands of pounds of debt you’re likely to never pay off has become the reality for many young people who go to university.<\/p>\n
With the interest those debts accumulate, a lot of us will never earn enough money to pay them off entirely. For some, earning below the repayment threshold forever seems the most likely option.<\/p>\n
However, ministers are now reportedly considering lowering the salary threshold<\/a> at which student loans must start being repaid from \u00a327,295 a year to \u00a323,000.<\/p>\n There was an immediate outcry when the news leaked.<\/p>\n Several finance experts immediately pointed out that lowering the threshold would have the largest impact on the lowest earners – those that originally would not have met the criteria for repayment.<\/p>\n NUS vice president for higher education Hillary Gyebi-Ababio said the NUS was “totally opposed<\/a>” to the idea:<\/p>\n Like the Government\u2019s decision to increase National Insurance contributions, this burden targets people earning lower incomes \u2013 after eighteen months of such hardship, and with the looming hike in energy prices set to hit millions of the most vulnerable this winter, the injustice is simply astounding.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Staring down a growing pile of thousands of pounds of loans feels insurmountable.<\/p>\n My own student debt comes out somewhere around the \u00a350,000 mark, and that was before any interest was added to it.<\/p>\n I escaped the 2017 undergraduate fees cap<\/a> rise to \u00a39,250 a year by the skin of my teeth, meaning the years below me are facing at least \u00a3750 more in loans.<\/p>\n That’s without considering the maintenance loans. These give more to those most in need at the time, but it totes their debt up even more for daring not to have parents who can help them out.<\/p>\n Perhaps I’m in the minority here, but at 18 I had little concrete understanding of what taking on those loans would mean financially in the future – and I’m willing to bet a lot of other students didn’t either.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It's cool that I made a "contract" with the Student Loans Company 12 years ago but they are still allowed to change it unilaterally whenever they want https:\/\/t.co\/3wi5wi5hsQ<\/a><\/p>\n — keewa (@keewa) September 26, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\nImpact on lowest earners<\/h5>\n
Huge loans<\/h5>\n
\n