By Beatrice Morandi
Every year, a significant number of students from all around the world aspire to begin a university course in the United Kingdom.
As per the most recent statistics and facts on student finance from the House of Commons Library, approximately 2.86 million students were enrolled in universities across the UK in the 2021-2022 academic year.
Depending on their circumstances, students may have access to finances that can cover the university fee or provide for their monthly maintenance expenses.
A changing world
It wasn’t always this way in the UK. The tuition fee was first introduced in 1998, with an initial charge of £1,000 per year. In 2006, this price was increased to £3,000. Now, in 2024, it stands at around £9,250 per year for each student for university fees and up to £12,500 for a maintenance loan.
Due to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, everything has become more expensive, including the debt of students at the end of their studies and the start of their working lives. And, as the maintenance loan shows, students who are the poorest now will leave uni with the biggest amount of debt.
A significant number of students who are not studying with a scholarship are experiencing mental health problems due to the cost-of-living crisis. This financial difficulty is impacting their ability to lead an everyday life. Additionally, students who have sought financial support from student finance for tuition fees and maintenance should be aware that their debt at the end of their studies will be around £42,000.
Marta Musemeci, 29, is a student advisor and university consultant, who has seen first-hand the hardships that students face. “There are four groups of students that I relate to. The first group is the English students who know the exact amount of their tuition fee and usually pay it using their own funds,” she says.
“The second group is European students who sometimes enroll in universities just to receive student finance without fully understanding the debt they will have at the end. This group constitutes around 70% of the students I help. The remaining 30% of European students are genuinely interested in starting their courses.
“In my opinion, the UK government doesn’t need to provide more information about student loans. I believe that student loans are a significant business, just like in any other country that offers them.”
She continues: “In my work, I didn’t find people having mental health problems for their student debt but I found people who are struggling to enter the universities, they usually try to have loans but if they are not residents in the UK for the law they cannot study, and usually they try to find an illegal way to get in.
Stefani Mineva, a 26-year-old student at London Met studying multimedia, says that studying in the UK is worth it. “I have been lucky to come here before Brexit and started to study when the student loan was still lower than now, I think it is worth it to study in the UK as an international student.
“I don’t just study what I like but I can improve my English, but my student debt is around £30,000, and I have a two-year-old child, so it is not easy to find space to have a good job who can help to repay fast my debt.”
How must it be repaid?
Each student will have a different type of method to repay their student loans, which is explained well on the GovUK website; if you don’t have a weekly earnings of at least £470, you don’t have to worry about it yet. But thousands of students have left the UK without repaying their student debt in full, which is one reason student debt fees have increased.
Twenty-nine-year-old Chiara Blardoni is finding it hard to repay her debt. “My student debt is currently around £24,000. I graduated from Coventry University in 2022 and became a Life Coach for students soon after. I am doing a PhD in London and have started repaying my debt,” she said.
“It’s not easy to think about, especially since many people my age are building their own families and buying houses while I still have to consider my debt. For that, I am also struggling with mental health problems, such as depression.”
Numerous students ponder upon the value of studying in the UK, particularly those hailing from countries like the USA, where student debt is significantly higher than in the UK, especially for universities belonging to the Ivy League. These students often find themselves spending almost half of their lives repaying their debts.
However, for state universities, the debt is typically around £9,000, which is comparable to that of UK universities; the only difference is how they repay their loans.
“In the United States, you are required to repay your student debt regardless of your circumstances. As a result, people often take out another loan to pay off their debts. However, in the United Kingdom, it is much easier as you only need to pay through specific options,” said Marta Musemeci, a London student advisor.
According to Confused.com, as of 2022, the total value of student maintenance loans was £206.3 billion, which is a 13% increase from 2021. The UK government has been spending more on maintenance loans every year since 2012. Between 2012 and 2016, this spending almost doubled from £46.2 billion to £89.5 billion. In 2017, total maintenance loan spending exceeded £100 billion and continued to grow by approximately £20 billion annually up until 2023.
Biology student Rogerio Suares 33, said, “I’m happy to start studying in the UK, my university is offering me many opportunities, I have a maintenance loan of £15,000 because I have a child to support but I’m happy for this opportunity because in my country, Portugal, universities are not as good quality and sometimes families can’t afford them.”
“Here I can start to work on another future for me and my son. I will be happy to repay my debt and I’m thankful for this opportunity.”
Leave a Reply