UK Student loan repayment situation

[La Reina Sol Marquesi]

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone is in a similar situation or can give me some advice on the below.

I haven't yet started paying back my student loan (I've never earnt enough in the 6 years living here) and now I've changed jobs, student loans are asking me for 148 quid a month (6800 pesos basically). I've tried calling and explaining that this is like paying another monthly rent for me, that we're at 40% inflation and asking them to reconsider as the info for the country is not up-to-date based on the economic situation of the last few months, that it's only getting worse. y ni bola.

Any tips for me? Is it worth me just paying what I can afford (maybe half) or just ignoring them? or keep fighting?

Thank you! besossss

 

[GMXam]

Unless you have some sort of loan forgiveness option, you should begin paying off, at minimum, half of what you can afford to pay and keeping the rest in a dollars account for a rainy day (if you lose employment or if something unforeseen occurs that requires you to spend money). Some student loan programs may offer loan forgiveness after a certain amount is paid off and under certain terms for repayment are followed; you may want to look into the details of your loan and the program under which it was issued. Also, you may want to see what the wage and/or tax overpayment refund garnishment laws or regulations apply to the loan program, especially if it happens to be a government subsidized loan program. Those may be valuable pieces of information should you decide to forego paying and return later to and earn wages in that country. Good luck.

 

[London2Baires]

The UK student loans regulations are quite complicated and depend on when you took the loan, as well as how much you currently earn etc, for example see this quote:

"Graduates only start to repay their debts when they reach a certain income threshold (currently £21,000 for students taking out a loan since 2012) and have their debts written off if they’re not repaid after 30 years (or after 25 years for students who started courses between 2006 and 2012)."

https://fullfact.org/education/100-billion-cost-writing-student-debt/

You can find a lot more specific info here:

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loans-tuition-fees-changes/

Good Luck and please update this thread for the community

Cheers!

 

[elhombresinnombre]

This is a tricky one and I'm not sure if the situation is the same as it was when we went through all this with my son. (I'll come back to how we did it with him, later.)

You were required to tell the SLC that you were going / had gone abroad. They would then trigger payments against your loan unless you had provided them with documentary evidence that your earnings were below their overseas income threshold - which was not the same threshold as for UK residents. This can be frustrating because the SLC have a lot of gotchas in their terms and conditions which usually end up in them asking to be paid. I haven't checked up to date info from the SLC website but you really ought to.

When he left the UK he didn't tell them that he was going or where he was going so they didn't even know he had gone. It was still a situation where high enough UK earnings would trigger repayments via HMRC. When they wrote to him in the UK, I opened his letters and wrote back saying "Sorry, he's gone travelling and I don't know where he is." (At any given moment that was more or less true.) Meanwhile the statements kept coming. At the end of a few fairly successful seasons of work overseas he'd built up enough cash to pay off the student loan in full - which he did, just like that. He decided to do that because a) he believed that he should and b) he can now come and go or even stay in Dear Old Blighty without expecting any complications to loom up.

I hope that's some help. Good luck!

 

[Flay]

Hi All,

I was wondering if anyone is in a similar situation or can give me some advice on the below.

I haven't yet started paying back my student loan (I've never earnt enough in the 6 years living here) and now I've changed jobs, student loans are asking me for 148 quid a month (6800 pesos basically). I've tried calling and explaining that this is like paying another monthly rent for me, that we're at 40% inflation and asking them to reconsider as the info for the country is not up-to-date based on the economic situation of the last few months, that it's only getting worse. y ni bola.

Any tips for me? Is it worth me just paying what I can afford (maybe half) or just ignoring them? or keep fighting?

Thank you! besossss

 

[Flay]

The SLC's a real hassle. The repaypment threshold for Argentina has always been absurdly low because they don't update it regularly enough to account for the rate of inflation here.

The options based on my own experience and those of friends:

1) Ask your employer to write a letter or "contract" specifying a lower salary that what you're actually receiving so that it falls below the repayment threshold. Depends what kind of relationship you have with your employer, whether they'll be prepared to do it.

2) State that you are living off your partner/suegro/flatmate and have no earnings of your own by completing the third party income support form.

 

[Somewhereinba]

Or just work your ass off and pay it off ASAP so you stop having to worry about them contacting you and being a hinderance. You have had 6 years with the opportunity for full time employment and have not paid back 1 cent? The Governments job is not to provide handouts although many Argentines may try convince you otherwise. Do what it takes so you can move on with your life.