I was talking to my dad the other day – apparently the student loan company sent him a letter out of the blue asking for proof of his income for the year 2006-2007. Now, it turns out that if you have a child at university asking for a loan, they want you to estimate your income at the start of every year, and prove it at the end of every year.

When I left university almost two years ago, my dad never got round to sending them proof and forgot all about it.

Months passed. The seasons changed. Eventually, in some dusty corner of an office somewhere, someone got round to sending out another letter demanding proof of income or bad things would happen. Cue lots of searching round my parent’s house for old payslips, tax returns and the like to appease The Powers That Be who Forgot About It For Almost Two Years.

A couple of weeks later the student loan company sent me a letter – now, bear in mind I left university in 2007 and have been repaying my loan along with the extortionate interest ever since.

The letter says:

“We have reviewed your entitlement to student finance because…we have received advice that your circumstances have changed… You are entitled to receive an increased amount of tuition fee loan. If you would like to request the increased amount, please complete the enclosed Tuition Fee Loan Request Form…”

Now as far as I’m aware, people starting university when I did simply weren’t entitled to tuition fee loans. My parents paid my tuition fee up front – so it’s paid. Dealt with. Why are the student loan company offering me an extra £407 loan along with a £793 grant to cover the rest? Actually, I’m sure my parents would be happy to receive the grant – should they have got this three years ago instead of having to pay my £1200 tuition fee?

Interest

When I was at school talking about going to university, I remember teachers telling me that it’s okay, loans are fantastic, you don’t start paying interest on them until you leave university.

What a load of bollocks. You pay interest on your loan from the day you take it out.

I dug out my “annual statement” from September 2007 – just after I’d left university, so let’s take a look at my interest payments.

Sept 2006 – I owed £9834.97 – Interest payment = £19.86/month
Jan 2007 – I owed £11945.32 – Interest payment = £24.34/month
Apr 2007 – I owed £13856.12 – Interest payment = £28.45/month

Thanks to all that interest mounting up each month, when I left university I owed the princely sum of £14138.82

When I started working, my automatic repayments didn’t cover the interest.

Online Service

The student loan service, unlike other financial institutions like, for example, banks, only send you a statement once a year. This means, (to quote the direct.gov website):

No information regarding repayments, balances and collection will be passed between the Student Loans Company and HMRC, other than the repayment information transfers at the end of the tax year when HMRC tell the Student Loans Company how much you have paid.

This means that there may be times when you wish to contact the Student Loans Company or HMRC about your balance, but they can’t provide you with this information.

You can however try to use the student loan company’s online service to ‘estimate’ how much you owe. Unfortunately, my student ID number isn’t enough to log me in. It acknowledges this is my first time using the service and asks me to set a new password. Only it wants an old password…which I’m reasonably sure I never had in the first place.

I feel like I was sold this product when I was too young to really understand how crap it was, and although I don’t mind paying it – it’s a loan after all – I resent the high interest payments that make it impossible to pay off even though I have a job. I also think that I wouldn’t take this sort of awful service from a bank – statements once a year? The government admitting that they don’t really know how much anyone owes?

What a massive shambles! I’d love to hear your rants about student loans so feel free to comment below. Or if you’re from the student loan company could you let me know when the whole system is going to collapse? It’s just a matter of time, right?

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