Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what the average student loan debt once graduates reach the threshold for repayment is.

As education is a devolved issue, the following answers concern the student finance system in England only. The student finance systems of the devolved administrations differ from that of England.

The point at which a borrower becomes liable to begin repaying a student loan is known as the Statutory Repayment Due Date (SRDD); this is normally the start of the tax year (6 April) after graduating or otherwise leaving their course. After the SRDD, borrowers are required to make repayments if their income is above the repayment threshold. The forecast average loan balances of borrowers on their SRDD is published at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/student-loan-forecasts-for-england/2022-23.

Borrowers starting their studies in the 2023/24 academic year will take out loans under different repayment terms, known as Plan 5, to those starting in the 2022/23 academic year who repay under Plan 2. Loan balances at SRDD for Plan 2 borrowers are higher due to being charged an interest rate above inflation during their studies.

The student loan repayment earning thresholds differ between the loan plan types and are published here: https://www.gov.uk/repaying-your-student-loan/what-you-pay.

Borrower earnings paths are complex. Some borrowers will have earnings which reach or exceed the repayment threshold for their plan type, others will not; some borrowers will, on multiple occasions, reach or exceed the threshold in one pay period and then fall below it the next. Unemployment, career breaks, parental leave, sick leave, and the undertaking of further study are all common life events that may drop earnings below the repayment threshold for a period of time. The cost of modelling and analysis required to answer the question would breach the disproportionate cost limit.

The average repayment period of student finance borrowers in England is available at: https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/student-loan-forecasts-for-england/2022-23.

Borrowers starting their studies in the 2023/24 academic year will take out loans under different repayment terms, known as Plan 5, to those starting in the 2022/23 academic year who repay under Plan 2. Plan 5 borrowers have longer maximum repayment periods of 40 years than Plan 2 borrowers with maximum repayment periods of 30 years. Less than 50% of plan 2 borrowers are expected to fully repay their loans, and so the median repayment period is the plan 2 maximum of 30 years. Many more Plan 5 borrowers are expected to fully repay their loans. The median repayment period for the 2023/24 cohort is forecasted to be 31 years, within the Plan 5 maximum of 40 years.