Record £4.8bn interest added to student debt in Britain last year
Rishi Sunak’s government has more than doubled the amount of money it makes from charging interest on student loans, official figures show, as graduates face borrowing costs of almost twice the rate set by the Bank of England.
According to the latest snapshot of the public finances from the Office for National Statistics, accrued interest on student loans swelled to £4.8bn in the 12 months to March. Up from £2.3bn in the previous year, it was the highest annual total on record.
The surge comes despite ministers intervening last year to cap the interest rate on student loans in England and Wales in response to inflation hitting the highest levels for 40 years, preventing an even larger rise in borrowing costs.
The Department for Education placed a maximum 6.3% rate on loans last autumn, which has since increased to a current level of 6.9%. It is due to increase again to 7.3% from the start of June, as ministers aim to reflect a rise in prevailing market rates offered by high street banks on unsecured personal loans.
The forecast average debt among the cohort of students who started their course in 2021-22 is £45,800when they complete their course. About 20% of full-time undergraduates who started in 2021-22 are expected to repay them in full, according to government projections.
Almost £20bn is loaned to about 1.5 million students in England each year, with the value of outstanding loans at more than £180bn.
Launched in the final months of Boris Johnson’s premiership, the cap prevented an increase to 12%. Rates had previously been calculated by adding 3 percentage points to the retail prices index (RPI) measure of inflation, which had surged in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ministers introduced the cap to strike a
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