Student funding in further education

Annex H: Key principles of student loans

H.1 Key principles of student loans:

• A government-supported loan to help you with your studies
• Total amount available to you would be based on your household income, taking account of any other grants / bursaries that you are entitled to
• Repayments don't start until you are earning over a certain amount
• For comparison, if you were on the national minimum wage you would be earning £11k per year and so would not be eligible to pay it back
• Repayments are automatically deducted from your pay – you don't need to do anything or worry about missing payments
• If you have not paid off your loan after 35 years, it will be cancelled
• It does not affect your credit rating
• The interest rate is lower than for commercial debt