Student loans: ‘I borrowed £44,000 for university and now £54,000’

There are four student loans, external available for undergraduates in the UK, depending on where you live.

Three of them charge interest based on the Retail Prices Index (RPI) rate of inflation in March, which was 4.3%.

But one of them – known as Plan 2 – charges interest based on RPI in March, plus up to 3%.

Up until last year, Plan 2 applied to students from England and Wales. Students from England have since been transferred on to a new loan arrangement but Plan 2 still applies to students from Wales.

All the graduates the BBC spoke to for this story took out Plan 2 loans. Some asked us not to use their surnames because they were speaking independently of their employer.

Adam said: “I think it is entirely reasonable that I should pay back a portion of the cost of my education because I have benefited personally from it.

“I mainly take issue with the interest rates that are charged.”

In the past, Labor has said that the “government could reduce the monthly repayments for every single new graduate without adding a penny to government borrowing or general taxation”.

But, as they said, this would be for new graduates.

Even then, it is far from certain that any measures to help students will be announced in the Budget on 30 October. And it is the Department for Education who is responsible for student finance policy in England.