Martin Lewis' warning: 1 million WRONGLY overpaid their student loans last year

Do you have an outstanding student loan? Martin Lewis explains how a MoneySavingExpert.com investigation found that one million people overpaid their student loans in the last tax yer, the main reasons why this happened, and how you can reclaim £100s or £1,000s back if you did.
For full information on reclaiming your student loan overpayment visit: www.moneysavingexpert.com/stu...

[@stulincoln4874]

My daughter recently qualified as a nurse. She is in over £45K of student debt which will only grow due to the shocking interest added. She’s going to get 2 years experience on ward before going to work in Australia to work simply because of her lifetime debt burden. The student finance system in this country is immoral. Whichever political party commits to scrap this ball & chain system, I’ll vote for them.

[@TamaEnergy]

I'm a docto4 doing th3 same thing

[@liamgaul]

You still have to pay if you move abroad. I lived abroad and had to pay. If she doesn't, she'll go into arreas and will be in big trouble if she ever moves back. It's essentially a graduate tax, NOT debt! It gets wiped after 30 years. Mine has grown to £70k, but it's a completely irrelevant number for most people. It could be £100 million and I'd still pay exactly the same amount as I do now. I'll never pay it off and it's just an extra tax to pay for my education until it gets wiped 30 years after I graduated. Unless you're a very high earner who will pay it off before 30 years, then it is not debt and the amount means nothing. I think this system is much better than previous ones, but could be better.

[@SReads-dh4rr]

they show you the number to scare you into paying, exactly as Liamgaul said- the amount owed: it means nothing, changes nothing, does nothing

[@dougnorton5204]

@@TamaEnergyChrist, I hope you don’t write prescriptions…

[@testpilotian3188]

What seems to be worse is quiet how many university graduates there are that are presently earning less than £27k. Certain parts of this country are a disgrace tbh. Graduating Uni should mean you get a nice job paying a nice amount, not earning less than I have done in the past for leaving school at 16 and never seeing a college or university….

[@B3CKIP]

It was all a lie, a big ol' lie

[@quintuscrinis8032]

Education, education, education!! Make uni a borderline requirement and it starts to mean nothing in practice.

[@LawrenceTimme]

It would if 50% of the population didn't go to university. When half of people have it value plummets. Only the top 10-20% of students should be allowed to go. The rest should have to pay upfront with no access to government loans.

[@nazuddin6346]

Thanks Martin always helping The Public

[@liamgaul]

Does anyone know if this applies to overseas residents? The rules are essentially the same but you have different minimum thresholds for different countries based on the cost of living, but it's still an annual threshold that SLC publishes every tax year. I only worked 4 months overseas for one tax year and was unemployed the rest of the year, thus didn't meet the threshold, but was told that overseas payments are calculated on a monthly threshold (even though an annual threshold is published) and I wouldn't be due a refund.

[@quintuscrinis8032]

Unfortunately I was caught up in the furor about the headline number increasing and decided not to take a gap year. Thus I am now on the worse "plan 1" system. Who do I reclaim the money I have thus overpayed by being on the more expensive plan from? Or the dàmages from missing that year out, which could have been more useful to my CV than the degree that these days means very little thanks to "Education, Education, Education"?

[@michaelperry5463]

Is it worth noting those that had the type A plan who had high thresholds at the time, now are paying substantially more whilst on mediocre wages due to inflation and the plan not taking this into account?

[@clarkemcnally5614]

I feel like I get shafted by SLC every year. I have lived in Australia for 4 years now. Australia tax year is 1 July to 30 June. Every 6 months or so they contact me to provide pay slips. My monthly payments every 6 months fluctuate greatly. Sometimes, £50 ($80) a month to be paid, others, £100 ($180) a month to be paid. Yes i earn the australian dollar but this seems far to high. Ive contacted them before and they assure me cause of the different economy and wages its right. I dunno deems odd to me. Any help on this would be great!

[@ow3nc]

I'm a 2009 graduate and started paying the student loan after 6th April 2010... luckily I kept all of my payslips from April 2010 to now and today I went through every one to see if I've been paying more student loan than I should have. Fortunately, after looking up all the Plan 1 thresholds (I didn't even know about these until watching this video!) and some calculating with that 9% deduction off the gross pay, I don't think I've done any over-payments. HOWEVER, I have noticed on every single payslip that the student loan deductions are rounded down to the nearest pound (e.g. £24.79 gets rounded down to £24.00) and it's this rounded down value that gets taken off the loan ... is this supposed to happen? This seems to be a sneaky way for the SLC to get more interest out of your balance.

[@MumLifeUK694]

I rang up on a whim and got 240 quid !!!

[@SReads-dh4rr]

Doing the Gods work

[@georgec2894]

I think I fall into a othet category. As someone who works abroad I provide three payslips for the students loans company to Calculator my earnings. This is always asked for during my bonus season. So my income appears to get artificially inflated to be that large for the test of the year, and this I feel the amount i repay is too large.

[@joepiekl]

You can send the proof whenever you want. They will ask a year after getting your previous ones. I've always sent them immediately if my income goes down. And obviously take as long as possible to update them if I get a pay rise.

[@kaleygreen8426]

I can only get the last 5 years of my annual income through the government gateway. How do I get previous years please going back to 2010? :-)

[@LawrenceTimme]

They should have to pay all of it back tbh.

[@sandradenise2283]

Just seen his show on ITV - absolute headache lol. Talking so fast, stressful to listen to. The whole thing seems so hurried. Perhaps he's told to fit so much into the allocated time, but it's ridiculous - better off putting half as much in, than all that fuss! QUALITY NOT QUANTITY!

[@nw8000]

And what about all the freeloaders that didnt pay a pennie!