Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of student loan interest rates on the total repayment amount for graduates earning below the repayment threshold.

Student loans are subject to interest so that those who can afford to do so contribute to the full cost of their degree.

Interest rates on student loans do not affect monthly repayments made by borrowers. Regulated repayments are linked to income not to interest rates or the loan balance. Borrowers will be liable to repay at a fixed percentage of earnings above the applicable student loan repayment threshold. Those earning below the student loan repayment threshold repay nothing. Outstanding debt, including interest built up, is written off after the loan term ends, or in case of death or disability, at no detriment to the borrower.

A full equality impact assessment of how the student loan reforms may affect graduates, including detail on changes to average lifetime repayments under Plan 2 and Plan 5, was produced and published under the previous government in February 2022 and can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/higher-education-reform-equality-impact-assessment.