Lauren82 Posted August 16, 2010 Share Posted August 16, 2010 Hiya I have a ridiculously large student loan debt!! so it is not something I can just pay off and be shot of. I was just wondering what peoples experiences were of making payments to the student load company from Australia. Anybody had any problems? Do they take the same percentage of your income as when you're in the UK? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chalkyhill Posted August 16, 2010 Share Posted August 16, 2010 I think that in most cases in the UK the loan deductions are taken as a form of tax - and that the student loan company has no ability to get a hold of your income abroad. I read somewhere that if you call up they can send you a form to fill in with your income and you can pay it if you want to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lauren82 Posted August 16, 2010 Author Share Posted August 16, 2010 I like the 'if you want to' part of that sentence I might give them a ring and find out the score. Don't have my visa yet so plenty of time to get things in order. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chalkyhill Posted August 16, 2010 Share Posted August 16, 2010 Well its the last thing ill be worrying about! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rossmoyne Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 I understand that you can negotiate repayments from Australia. I know of a teacher who didnt pay any of her loan for 3 years and hoped they had forgotten all about her. However she has now been tracked down and has been hit with legal action. She has negotiated a repayment plan with them now, so the message seems to be to be up front and honest! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuddysMum Posted August 17, 2010 Share Posted August 17, 2010 Why would anyone think they can rack up a huge loan and then not repay it? Maybe my age is showing a bit here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lauren82 Posted August 17, 2010 Author Share Posted August 17, 2010 I would normally agree BuddysMum but I will assume you have had no dealing with the student loans company. I would actually say that a lot of people (like myself) who have ‘racked up’ huge student loans are actually victims of circumstance, and I have exchanged many letters with the house of commons in my time over this. For my undergraduate degree I had to take out full loans because I was assessed on my ‘married’ parents income. Their joint income barely scraped over the minimum threshold yet little dispensation was given for me having 2 other siblings in higher education at the same time as me. My parents were expected to financially support all 3 of us –which was close to impossible through higher education on their wages - because they were married. On the flip side of the coin I went to uni with students who had divorced parents and because their financial support was calculated based only on the parent they were living with, they were entitled to all sorts of financial support, including non repayable grants - even though their other parents were earning upwards of my parents joint income. So whilst I have to pay my loan back which supported me through uni and had to work every spare hour I had to support myself, they bought themselves new cars with their no repayable grants– Sound unethical? It is! But on paper they weren’t doing anything wrong, so why not! My postgraduate degree, Despite having lived away from home (other side of the country) and not relying on my family financially for 5 years and having my own mortgage for 3 years, (but because I was not married myself,) I was classed as ‘dependent’ on my parents because I was under 25 – How old do you have to be to become an adult in this country!?! So again I was assessed on my parent’s joint income, although this was nothing to do with me – AT ALL!! So once again I had to take out full loans. So I apologise to the students loan company that I have happily married parents. I apologise that I have 2 siblings who also wanted to continue their education and I apologise that I did not want to be married under the age of 25. But those are my circumstances and because of those I have ‘racked up’ a huge student debt. Now I can accept that you may say ‘if I couldn’t afford it why go’– but I don’t think education should be about what you can and can’t afford. I am not a believer in only educating the rich. And because of my determination I now have opportunities open to me (such as moving to other countries) that probably wouldn’t be open to me if I hadn’t just lumped the cost of it. There is a lot of unfairness in the student finance calculations and there are a lot of victims of circumstance caught in their clutches - So I will begrudge paying the loan back as much as I begrudged taking it out. Ok. Rant over. Phew! Needless to say I will continue making payments on my student loan (I should mention that it is actually so large that it will never be paid off in my working career but - hey ho) and for anyone who is interested the information you need is found on their website. Basically the repayment amounts are the same as in this country - 9% of what you earn over £15,000 per annum, as Australia is deemed to have similar living costs to the UK. (If you moved to somewhere like Poland it would be over £9000.) You are assessed annually based on your income and at anytime you can ask for a review e.g. If you were out of work or you had a pay rise. Hope that helps, and I will attach the link below and I apologise for the rant. http://www.studentloanrepayment.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=93,3867114&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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