Student Loans

Student Loan for fees

• Fee Loan enables you to delay paying your tuition fees until after you have graduated
• Non income-assessed
• Available to all new and current students – you won’t have to pay your fees upfront anymore even if you had to do so wholly or in part before
• Only exception is for students who normally live in Scotland but are studying outside Scotland and who started their course before 2006/07. You’ll continue to have to pay all or part of your fees upfront if you are assessed to do so
• Fee Loan is paid directly to your University

Student Loan for maintenance (first four years)

• Loan is made up of a non income-assessed part and an income-assessed part
• Proportion of the loan which is assessed and not assessed can vary according to:
  - when you started your course 
  - which country of the UK you live in 
  - where you are studying 
• Are three different rates of loan depending on whether you live at home, away from home and study in London or away from home and study elsewhere in the country  
• Additional weekly loan payments if your course is longer than the standard year
• New Long Courses Loan if you start your course in 2008/09 and live in England or Northern Ireland 
• Exact details of  amounts can be found on the related website links

  Student Loan for maintenance (fifth year onwards)

• Loan is non income-assessed 
• Set annual amount – extra weeks are not payable
• Exact details of the amounts can be found on the related website links

(There is a College Fee Loan if you are studying for a second degree in medicine at Oxford or Cambridge Universities. See the related link)

• Low interest rate - APR is the same as the rate of inflation. Although, unfortunately, inflation is rising at the moment. 
• Affordable repayments - linked to your income so you pay 9% of your gross income over £15,000. For example if you earn £25,000 you will pay £75 a month
• Easy repayments deducted directly from your salary by your employer, like income tax. (Remember if you go abroad to work you must tell the SLC so that arrangements can be made to collect repayments directly from you)
• If you are earning less than £15,000 you don’t make any repayments
• Under certain circumstances, such as long term disability, your loans will be written off and you won’t have to repay them.
• Repayment holidays have been introduced for English students who enter repayment from April 2012. See related Link.

The Government website provides information about student loans for all UK and EU students.You can find a copy of 'Student Loans, A Guide to Terms and Conditions 08/09' on this site under 'Forms and Guides'. This is relevant to students from all the UK countries.

Cons

• Eligibility for maintenance loans is based on  the residence requirements for UK student support. 
• Fee loans are not available for second degrees (but maintenance loans are)
• Can take a long time to repay although you can choose to make extra payments to pay back your loans faster