About The UK Student Loan Calculator

The UK Student Loan Calculator is an independent project. It began with student loan repayments and now includes tools for pay, borrowing, saving and buying a home.

Compare the cost

Student loan repayments depend on income above your plan's threshold. Write-off rules depend on your plan and, for some borrowers, when the first loan was paid. See the official repayment rules and write-off rules.

The calculator projects repayments under the assumptions you choose. Compare pay growth, borrowing and overpayments, then inspect the schedule. An overpayment can reduce interest yet still leave you paying more overall if part of the loan would otherwise be written off.

Check the assumptions

Future pay, interest and policy can change. Projections are estimates, and annualised pay calculations can differ from individual payslips. Rates and sources explain the released rules; the overpayment guide explains the trade-offs.

Calculations run in your browser. The usage events record actions such as calculating or opening another tool; they do not include salaries, balances or result amounts. Read the privacy policy.

Explore the calculators.

Referenced by

References, not affiliations or endorsements.

Reference details

University of Bath · IPR blog, Study International and Student Beans refer to the same 2022 analysis.

Calculator inputs

Year Starting Course
  • Choose the calender year in which you started (or will start) your course.
  • If you don't yet know which year you will start, choose the earliest possible year - this should still give you an idea of costs.
Tuition Fee Loan
This is the average cost of your Tuition Fee per year at University. Make sure account for any bursary payments that may reduce this value.
Maintenance Loan
  • This is the average cost of your Maintenance Loan per year at University.
  • The maximum maintenance loan you can apply for depends on your household income.
Pre-Tax Salary after Graduating
  • This is the salary you will earn in the year following graduation.
  • We make assumptions about how your salary will grow over time - you can view and adjust this rate in the advanced assumptions tab.
  • You can manually set salary by individual year in the data table within the results tab.
Retail Price Index (RPI)
  • The Retail Price Index (RPI) is one of the two main measures of UK inflation produced by the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
  • Under Plan 2 (2012 and later) Student Loans, the interest rate depends on the RPI.
  • During your course, the interest rate is RPI + 3%.
  • After graduating, the interest rate is set to between RPI and RPI + 3%, depending on how much you earn.
  • We assume an average RPI rate to simplify the calculations.
Your Salary Growth (Nominal)
In calculating your repayments and interest rate, we need to make assumptions about your salary growth in the future.
UK Average Earnings Growth (Nominal)
We make an assumption about average UK earnings growth because it affects the earnings threshold at which you make student loan payments.
Bank of England Base Rate
We make an assumption about the Bank of England Base Rate because it affects the Plan 1 interest rate.
Current Payment Threshold
  • If you earn more than this threshold pre-tax each year, then you start making student loan repayments.
  • If you earn less than this threshold pre-tax each year then you make no student finance repayments that year.
  • Your student loan repayment each year is 9% of your pre-tax earnings above the threshold.
  • We assume this increases in line with average UK earnings growth.
Current Interest Rate Ceiling
  • If you earn above the interest rate ceiling, then the interest on your student loan is set at RPI + 3%.
  • If you earn below the interest rate ceiling, then the interest on your student loan is tapered, down to RPI at the current payment threshold.
  • We assume this increases in line with average UK earnings growth.
Use Historical Data
  • If you tick use historical data, we will use actual RPI and payment thresholds from the past.
  • For example, in 2016 the payment threshold was £21,000 and RPI was 1.6%. We can use these actual figures rather than using our assumed RPI.
  • Even if you tick use historical data, we will still use the assumptions about RPI and payment thresholds for years in the future.
Set Loan Outstanding
  • If you tick set loan size, you will be able to enter your outstanding loan total.
  • This setting is useful if you already know how much student loan debt you have and if you have already made payments in the past.
  • If you are still at University, do not use this setting.
Set Tuition & Maintenance by Year
  • If you tick set tuition & maintenance by year, you will be able to enter individual tuition fee loan and maintenance loan payments by year within your course.
  • This setting is useful if the tuition fee loan or maintenance loan total differed in particular years in your course.
  • This setting cannot be used with the manually set loan size setting.
Increase Starting Salary with Inflation
  • If you tick increase starting salary with inflation, we will adjust your starting salary to reflect inflation.
  • For example, if you start working in 2024, the nominal starting salary of your job will be higher than what you might expect because you likely haven't taken inflation into account.
  • This setting cannot be used in conjunction with manually setting current loan balance.
  • This setting will not affect calculations where the graduation date is in the past as we assume you set the actual nominal salary.
Current Student Loan Debt
  • Enter your current total student loan debt. You can find this figure on the UK Government's student loan repayment website.
  • Do not use this setting if you are still at University - instead, click the button above named 'I don't know my balance.' This setting will work out what your student loan balance total will look like once you have completed University.
Monthly Overpayment Amount
  • If you choose, you can see what happens if you made extra monthly repayments on top of your standard repayments.
  • We assume that the overpayments begin after graduating University.
  • We assume that you increase the overpayment amount annually in line with inflation.
Set Your Student Loan Plan
Choose the plan shown by the Student Loans Company. England moved new undergraduate borrowers to Plan 5 from 2023; Wales stayed on Plan 2. Scotland uses Plan 4 and Northern Ireland uses Plan 1. Use the plan finder if you are unsure.
Balance as at
  • Choose the month your student loan balance was accurate as at - the date shown on your statement or on the government's student loan repayment website.
  • Student loan repayment years run from April, so a balance from October only has half a year of interest and repayments left to run.
  • We use this to work out a part first year, rather than charging you a full twelve months of interest and repayments.
I also have a Postgraduate Loan
  • Tick this if you have a Postgraduate (Master's or Doctoral) Loan as well as your undergraduate loan.
  • You repay both at the same time, but they are separate loans: 9% of your income above your undergraduate threshold, plus 6% of your income above £21,000 for the Postgraduate Loan.
  • Each loan has its own interest rate and its own write-off date, so one can be written off while you are still repaying the other.
  • Postgraduate Loans were only available for courses starting from 2016.
Current Postgraduate Loan Balance
  • Enter your outstanding Postgraduate Loan balance, separately from your undergraduate balance. You can find both on the UK Government's student loan repayment website.
  • Do not add it to your undergraduate balance - the two loans are repaid at different rates against different thresholds, so we model them separately.
Postgraduate Course Start Year
  • Choose the calendar year you started your postgraduate course. This can be different to your undergraduate start year.
  • A Postgraduate Loan is written off 30 years after you were first due to repay it, which is counted from your postgraduate course - not from your undergraduate one.
Postgraduate Course Length
  • Enter how many years your postgraduate course runs for. A one year Master's is the most common.
  • The write-off clock starts the April after you finish, so a longer course moves the write-off year back by the same number of years.
Which Loan to Overpay
  • If you overpay while repaying two loans, you choose which one the extra money goes to.
  • By default it goes to whichever loan is charging the higher interest rate that month, which saves the most interest.
  • If the loan you are aiming at clears, the rest of that month's overpayment goes to the other loan.
  • Clearing a loan early also stops that loan's mandatory repayments, so the options are not directly comparable on total repaid.
Year of Birth
  • Enter the calendar year you were born. We only ask for this when your write-off date depends on your age.
  • Plan 1 loans first paid before 1 September 2006 are written off when you turn 65, rather than after 25 years.
  • Plan 4 (Scottish) loans first paid before 1 August 2007 are written off when you turn 65 or after 30 years, whichever comes first.

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