High interest rates mean average student accrues £5,800 interest Three-quarters of UK university leavers will never pay off their student loans, even if they are still contributing in their 50s, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. Graduates in England were saddled with the highest student debt in the developed world, the IFS said, adding that the benefits of earlier reforms to the tuition fee system — which took pressure off the lowest-earning students — had been wiped out by subsequent changes such as the replacement of maintenance grants with loans. The IFS said that because graduates repaid their student loans at 9 per cent of their earnings, above a certain threshold, and over a 30-year period, in many cases interest accrued on their debt too fast for repayments to keep up.

https://www.ft.com/content/3fc14332-60c7-11e7-8814-0ac7eb84e5f1?mhq5j=e3