That would be assuming you’d have the same salary without your education.
I agree. You can easily pay it off if your willing to push your career. My main consideration is that a lot of people aren’t, and to pay it off your looking at probably I believe 65k+ per year minimum to keep up with interest payments and to pay it off before 30 years.
The main thing though isn’t necessarily that people won’t pay it off but more that it simply doesn’t matter if you pay it off or not.
Unless you make a significant salary (or live in Scotland, or get funding) your going to be paying it probably for at least 20 or more years anyway, so the actual difference doesn’t really change. And the amount to pay on the lower end of the salary range isn’t a huge amount of money, and assuming it wasn’t a waste of time, you are realistically making more money because of your degree than not.
It certainly isn’t invisible when you do self assessment.
It isn’t invisible when you have chunks taken every month from your paycheck and bigger chunks from your bonus that your peers who took a different route don’t pay.
Just because you’re not looking at it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It’s the price you pay for a specific investment in your education, and I think it’s helpful to think about it like that rather than treating it like it’s free. There are other alternatives with different costs and returns.
For extra fun I’m (hopefully) staring an open uni degree in October so I’m currently best buddies with student finance trying to get funding sorted. It brings back memories
It depends on your mindset. I don’t give mine a second thought but if I was earning enough to see deductions then I’d probably be the same as you.
Depending on the interest rate of the student loan would you be better putting it in a high interest savings account and paying back a larger lump sum at a later date?
On the bonuses, you can usually claim this back (several years if you haven’t previously claimed). Useful if you don’t believe you will pay it off quickly and want the cash for other things.
I’d check the numbers carefully because this is almost always not worth it.
I’m not earning enough to pay back yet so it’s just building. (3.3%)
I have a reasonable sum to pay back at the moment (from an ISA I recently closed), I haven’t paid any back yet, and the additional £1,500 it will reduce by.
I’ve just started a high interest saver to build some more money, and still have a reasonable amount sitting in an account not earning interest.
@Eden is right. It’s a terrible financial decision to pay it back voluntarily. I’m not even sure when it would be worth it but it’s definitely not in your case.
As others have said don’t rush to pay it off in lump sums.
Save that money for yourself. The only time I’d ever pay off a lump sum is if it I was going to clear it completely, in the knowledge that I would have paid it off over the somewhat longer term anyway. (And it was cash I couldn’t earmark for other purposes.)
On the bonuses, you can usually claim this back (several years if you haven’t previously claimed). Useful if you don’t believe you will pay it off quickly and want the cash for other things.
No, you can’t. You can only do this if the total amount you earnt that year was less than the threshold required for student finance repayments to commence.
Just thought I’d throw in here that for Plan 2 at least there is value in paying early in circumstances where you would end up paying the full amount before the write off point. Always best to calculate for your own circumstances rather than following blanket advice on the Internet
Right now, demand for developers is so high that unconventional paths to employment are much more easier. But once supply and demand equal out you’ll see entry requirements for jobs go up in line with other professions.
That’s not to say that a degree will be an absolute must but I’ve no doubt that it will be the norm.
I disagree. Neither Shopify nor Apple asked about my education when they reached out to me, and it’s not because they’re already hiring every computer science postgrad they can find. It’s because a degree is not a reliable indicator of skill, experience, or ability; not to mention culture fit.
