students in England have no debt at all because their families are rich enough to pay up front.
So, my sister and I are some of the luckier ones – I went to university before the fees increased from £3,000 to £9,000 a year, was able to access the maintenance grants for lower-income background students that were scrapped byBut I am painfully aware of how much my degree has really cost now. I remember advisers at school telling me it wasn’t “real debt” when I questioned the loan system because “most people never repay it”. Well, at £500 a month, the debt feels very real.
Graduates will still be repaying their loans – which can now be as great as £60,000 or more – well into their thirties and forties. I have thought a lot about what a milestone paying off my student loan will be, how lucky I have been to earn enough to even pay the debt back , what planets must have aligned to allow me to earn that money while doing a job I love.