Students: Loans
(asked on 10th November 2015) - View Source
Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, if he will estimate the number of people who would be worse off financially if the threshold for student loan repayments were not index-linked in (a) Barnsley East constituency, (b )Barnsley, (c) South Yorkshire and (d) Yorkshire and the Humber.
The Student Loans Company (SLC) administers student support for each of the UK Government Administrations. Information on English loan borrowers is published annually by SLC in the Statistical First Release ‘Student Loans in England: FY 2014-15’.
http://www.slc.co.uk/official-statistics/student-loans-debt-and-repayment/england.aspx
The numbers of borrowers at the end of the 2014-15 financial year with post-2012 student loan arrangements who had been domiciled in (a) Barnsley East constituency, (b) Barnsley, (c) South Yorkshire and (d) Yorkshire and the Humber when they applied for financial support is set out in the following table:
Borrowers at the end of the 2014-15 financial year(1) with post-2012 Loan Arrangements by Domicile | |||
Geographical Area | Students (2,3,4) | ||
Barnsley East and Mexborough | 1,330 | ||
Barnsley | 3,610 | ||
South Yorkshire | 20,350 | ||
Yorkshire and the Humber | 94,370 | ||
Source: Student Loans Company | |||
Notes: | |||
(1) As of 31/03/2015 | |||
(2) Includes only students with loans with a non-zero balance | |||
(3) Excludes Further Education students (4) Figures rounded to the nearest multiple of 10 | |||
Freezing the repayment threshold will not affect the up-front cost of attending university. It would mean that students on average meet a greater share of these costs over their working life through loan repayments, helping ensure the long-term financial sustainability of the system. Those earning below the repayment threshold will not be affected by the proposed changes.