Student Loan Question - for those who graduated late 90's!

You borrowed the money, you should pay it all back.

Give them a call and find out what is going on, chances are they will recognise their own error next time anyway.

They are probably held with another company now - a lot were sold on!

I paid mine off a couple of years ago but had a similar problem, I did recieve a letter for the two other outstanding years afterwards for some reason. I would probably call them and ask for the balance; you can always say you have mislaid the statment.

ETA that makes sense if some of the debt was sold on, that the previous years arrived later, thinking back I am sure they weren't direct from the student loans company.

Yep, ones pre-a certain date are held by one company, and then after that date another company holds them.

Can I make a suggestion?

If you have any spare cash each month, start making some payments towards the loan balance. It came as quite a shock to me to go from paying nothing to having to find over £120 a month for 5 long years!

I fully intend to pay it all back when I can!!! Yeah I'll give them a call - sounds like I'll have another letter from another company soon then?

My apologies. I took, "don't particularly want to alert them to the error" to mean that you hoped they would forget about the debt and you wouldn't have to pay it.

I must have misunderstood.

I'm actually putting money to one side every month and saving it in a high interest account that earns more interest than the SLC actually charges. I don't want to alert them to the error and have to pay anything back immediately as I have to give notice to actually get the access to the cash. In other words I want to delay paying it back so that I can earn more interest and then pay a bulk sum back when I have to.

Part of me is now thinking that I just want rid of this yearly noose around my neck anyway now.....

I graduated in 2000 and only one of my loans is held by the student loans company - the other two are with Honour Student Loans. I haven't started paying mine back yet either as for the last 7 years I've worked in Recruitment and my gross 'basic' pay (I didn't mention the commission I earned) didn't meet the threshold. I know I need to start paying it back and want rid of it but it's a big chunk monthly that I just can't afford at the moment.

I've not had my letters yet - what is the threshold now?

Forgot to bring the letter with me to work (d'oh!) but the SLC one is £2192.

I have no idea who my other loans from 1996 and 1997 are with....needless to say I'll be calling them tomorrow.

It will be Honour Student Loans. They took on the earlier ones.

Thanks CD.

It will be honour student loans, thats who has my 97 / 98 loans

Though am not sure how youve not noticed this before if you have been deferring every year, Ive been deferring since I graduated in 2003 and HSL took over in 2005 I think and I have had to submit a deferment form to them as well one to SLC (I didnt the first year as I hadnt been told I needed to and they took their payment from my account - I got it back but it was still a shock and that was only payment for 2 out of my 6 years worth of loans)

Nope - last year all 3 were with SLC - I was looking back through last years paperwork last night. Thats really really odd.

T'is indeed very very odd

I'm paying off five student loans (1993–1998), all still held with SLC, in two separate acounts?

It is confusing when they send statements, letters etc as they don't put all the loans together. When I deferred them, I had to fill in two forms I think, one for each batch?

Have to say though they seem very on the ball when you call them with a query and seem to know what's what from your records. Just a shame they can't keep all my accounts together and send one batch of paperwork.

Not quite accurate in all cases...........

When the loans were first introduced, not only did you not have to start paying til your earnings reached a cetain threshold, you also did not have to pay at all if they did not reach that within (I think) 20 years.

I'm not sure from what date that changed, though it was probably before the OP took out her loans

I don't think that two of mine (out of three) were sold to Honour's until a year or so after I graduated. I know that not all loans were - why they couldn't have kept each persons together is beyond me - would be so much easier.

I'm pretty sure I've only ever done one deferment form though and it's covered all three loans.

Penguin - Thanks for the threshold info, I've not had my forms through yet.

This was the case when I took all three of my loans out. I'm really not trying to get out of paying it - I intend to pay it off and if I get the most recent job I have applied I'm definitely going to have to!

I think it was a bit longer than 20 years - I have some vague memory of mine being discharged when I was in my 50s if I hadn't paid them off.

My loans were between 93 and 97 - I totally recommend NOT ignoring the letter though. Despite problems due to admin on their side, both H and I got letters from debt collection agencies for nonpayment while we were paying, and I think H got chased for a loan a couple of years after he understood he'd actually finsihed paying.

Seriously, they are awful to deal with but it only gets worse!

I got a latter from them last week saying I was 'due to enter repayment'. I'm well into my second year of paying >£150 a month...... (PAYE)

Erm, yeah. I had to call them to make sure they weren't going to start taking the contributions twice!

Not exactly the best organised company I've ever dealt with.

I got a student loan in 1998 and returned to college in 2002 to retrain. I am still a long way off the threashold and I may never earn that kind of money. I am in a dead end job just now but it is in a school which is very handy now I have step children of a young age that live with us. I am no longer as career minded as I was when I retrained.

I would be delighted to earn enough to start paying back the loan. The threashhold is just more than twice what I earn just now!!!!

My loans are from 97, 98 and 99. Mysteriously, the 97 and 99 ones are now HSL, and the 98 one is still SLC! The logic behind that has baffled me for years!

I've only ever filled in one deferral form each year though. Despite being two different companies, they seem to be able to pass the information along.

True. Years ago my H represented some chap pro bono who had been entitled to defer repayment but ignored the letter and not paid. Despite being happy to accept that he would have been entitled to defer, they had no sympathy at all and (IIRC) called in the whole of the loan for immediate repayment. I suppose they have to have a policy of "no mercy" given how many people must fail to do the form correctly.

True. Years ago my H represented some chap pro bono who had been entitled to defer repayment but ignored the letter and not paid. Despite being happy to accept that he would have been entitled to defer, they had no sympathy at all and (IIRC) called in the whole of the loan for immediate repayment. I suppose they have to have a policy of "no mercy" given how many people must fail to do the form correctly.