Student loans and repayments

Loans to full time students from the UK

You can apply for a tuition fee loan up to £9,250 for 2023/24. This is paid directly to the University each year and is not dependent on your household income.

You may also be able to apply for a maintenance loan to assist with meeting living costs such as food, accommodation and travel expenses. These are normally paid in three instalments throughout the university year directly to your bank account.

Further details on student finance for undergraduates can be found on the  Government’s website. Northumbria University’s own website also includes information on fees, funding and scholarships and other useful financial information. 

Repayment of student loans

You’ll only repay your student loan when your income is over the threshold amount for your particular repayment plan. The threshold amounts change on 6 April every year.

The earliest you’ll start repaying is either:

• the April after you leave your course
• the April 4 years after the course started if your course is longer than 4 years, for example if you’re studying part-time or doing a Postgraduate Doctoral course
• April 2026 if you’re on Plan 5

Your repayments automatically stop if either:

• you stop working
• your income goes below the threshold
• you have made full repayment

Further information on the repayment of student loans, including information for those students on different plans can be found here.

For an undergraduate student from England starting University from the 2023/24 academic year onwards (who would be on repayment plan 5), the repayment threshold is £25,000. The rules mean you only make repayments once you earn over £25,000 per year, and only on the amount above £25,000. You'll pay 9% of anything you earn above that amount as a contribution to paying off your loan. If you don't earn more than the threshold, you won't pay anything and, after 40 years, any outstanding loan is written off.

The rules on thresholds and repayment periods for English students starting their study from the academic year 2023/24 onwards changed from previous years as of April 2023 due to the outcome from the Post-18 Education and Funding Review. Further information on this review can be found here. 

A student loan is unlike any other loan, especially as it has no impact on your credit score – the number which decides how generous lenders may be to you when you apply for a credit card or a mortgage. The amount you repay depends on the amount you earn after you graduate, and the repayments will be automatically deducted from your salary by your employer before you are paid. The student loan effectively acts as a graduate tax so that the higher amount you earn, the higher amount you pay back until your loan is fully repaid.

With the current average graduate salary in the UK being just over £24,000, most graduates won’t repay anything until established in their careers. Even graduates earning £35,000 per year will be repaying an amount less than the cost of a daily coffee.

Monthly repayment example as of 2023/24 repayment rules for a plan 5 student: