EXCLUSIVE: Research by Obsurvant found only half felt properly informed when they chose to go, while just 54% felt their time at school had prepared them for big financial decisions
Nearly half of graduates who took out a student loan would not do so if they had their time again, new polling has revealed.
Research by Obsurvant found only half felt properly informed when they chose to go, while just 54% felt their time at university had prepared them for big financial decisions.
The data also found confidence with numbers was the single biggest factor shaping how informed students felt, with 72% of those who felt “strongly confident” about maths saying they felt informed about the long-term cost of their loan, compared to 21% who were unconfident.
Universities can currently charge a maximum yearly tuition fee of £9,535 for standard full-time courses. Last year the Government announced tuition fees will increase in line with inflation for the next two years, meaning fees are on course to be closer to £10,000.
Earlier this year the National Union of Students (NUS) likened the Government to a “loan shark” as students were “mis-sold mortgage-sized debts that politicians can raise repayments on at the drop of a hat”.
Lord Agnew, former Treasury minister and Chair of the Numeracy for Life Committee, said: “Nearly half of borrowers now say they wish they had never taken out their student loan, and confidence with numbers is the clearest reason why: those let down by their school maths were far more likely to be in the dark about the true cost of their debt.
“That is the Innumeracy Tax: a charge levied not on income or spending, but on the people least equipped to spot it, paid in decades of repayments they never understood. This is not a theoretical problem.
“Each September, another wave of eighteen-year-olds puts their name to the biggest financial commitment of their young lives, without ever having been shown how to weigh up what it will actually cost them.
“For some, the gamble pays off. But far too many find themselves, a few years on, saddled with repayments stretching towards retirement and a qualification that has not opened the doors they were told it would.”
It comes amid controversy over how student loans in England are sold to teenagers. Martin Lewis, the founder of MoneySavingExpert, has repeatedly described Plan 2 student loans as a “breach of contract”.
Graduates who took out a student loan between September 2012 and July 2023 pay back 9% of everything they earn over £29,385.
This threshold will now be frozen from 2027 until 2030, instead of being uprated annually in line with earnings as was promised when Plan 2 loans were first announced in 2010.
