1.8m people have more than £50,000 in student debt

Three million people made a repayment against their student loans in 2023/24

Transcript

00:00Are you one of the millions of Britons saddled with tens or even hundreds of thousands of

00:06pounds worth of debt from your student days? New data from the Student Loans Company showed

00:10just under 1.8 million people in the UK have student debt exceeding £50,000, while around

00:1661,000 have loan balances above £100,000. In England and Wales, ex-students start repayments

00:23on their loans when they reach an annual earnings threshold, and debts are written off at the

00:28end of loan terms, regardless of how much is paid off, often 30 or 40 years after the

00:32course began. Previously, it was thought the average loan balance when starting repayments

00:37was £45,000, but recent stats suggest this has increased to closer to £48,500. In 2023-24,

00:44around 3 million people made a repayment against their student loans. The shocking figures

00:49have caused critics of the system to speak out against not only huge interest rates for

00:53their loans, but also the sky-high cost of higher education in the UK, especially compared

00:58with some of our European neighbours and even Scotland, where university study is free.

01:02Do you think student debt is worth the cost?