The British graduates with the highest student debt
The 10 graduates with the biggest student debt in Britain owe a collective £2.7m, figures show.
The single most indebted student owes the Government nearly £300,000 for courses started in January 2012.
All 10 were more than £250,000 in debt for courses beginning between 2010 and 2015, data released to The Telegraph by the Student Loans Company (SLC) under Freedom of Information rules revealed.
Experts said that the graduates were likely to have done long courses or multiple degrees, as well as having faced high interest rates.
Student loans can be taken out to cover tuition fees – which are set to rise to £9,535 in September – and living costs.
The amount that can be borrowed depends on the financial situation of the student in question, and the loans are not repaid until graduates earn over a certain threshold.
The average graduate in England last year was £48,470 in debt when they started repaying their loan. Approximately £20bn a year is loaned to 1.5 million students, according to a briefing by the House of Commons.
The value of outstanding loans is forecast to hit £500bn by the late 2040s, government predictions show. This is in part because of the interest rate structure on higher earners.
Those who started their degrees in 2012 have so-called 'Plan 2' loans, which sees them charged the retail price index (RPI) plus up to three percentage points, and start making repayments once their salaries exceed £28,740.
For anybody earning between £28,470 and £51,245, the interest rate increases gradually from 4.3pc to 7.3pc – the higher the salary, the higher the interest rate. Anybody earning over £51,245 is charged the maximum interest rate of 7.3pc.
Sarah Coles, of investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown, said: 'It's really unusual to have an outstanding loan balance of £250,000 or more. It will usually mean someone has studied a number of courses in order to rack up the debts. It's also likely to include plenty of interest.'
She said that the changes made to student loans in 2023 would mean students pay back more on lower salaries. Those on Plan 5 loans begin repayments at £25,000, and will not have their debt wiped for 40 years.
Ms Coles said: 'We have moved from a system where only 27pc of people repaid in full, to one where 65pc of people do. And because they carry it for the longest, upper middle earners will repay the most.'
Tom Allingham, of campaign group Save the Student, said: 'The amounts exposed by this data are eye-watering.'
Mr Allingham said that even though a graduate could owe as much as £300,000, the repayment terms on student loans would not change.
He said: 'The size of your debt has absolutely no impact on the amount you repay each month. Your debt could be £300,000 or £300, but you'd still only repay the same 9pc of your salary over the threshold.'
The campaigner said that because of the lower interest rates on the new Plan 5 loans, it was unlikely that future graduates would see debts as large as current graduates. Those who began their courses from 2023 will pay only RPI on their loans.
He said: 'Future graduates will see their loan balance grow more slowly than those in the past, and never have to repay more than they borrowed in real terms.'
One way that graduates are avoiding repaying the SLC is by moving abroad.
Figures show the body is trying to trace 112,000 'runaway' graduates who live overseas and are not actively repaying their loans, including 73,000 UK natives. They have a total outstanding loan balance of £2bn – or £27,000 each.
Tuition fees were introduced by Tony Blair in the 1990s, and initially sat at just £1,000 a year and then £3,000 from 2006. The coalition government controversially tripled fees to £9,000, despite a Liberal Democrat manifesto pledge to do away with the charges.
The fees then rose to £9,250 in 2017, and will increase to £9,535 later this year, an increase of 3.1pc.
A Department for Education spokesman said: 'These balances are not typical of the vast majority of graduates.
'It is vital that students can be confident the significant investment they make in higher education delivers real value for money and that universities provide teaching and an experience they deserve, to help students pursue a rewarding career.
'It's also important we have a sustainable student finance system that works for both students and taxpayers.'
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