Student Maintenance Loan Calculator

The maintenance loan helps cover living costs while studying. For 2026/27 the maximum depends on where you live and study, running to £14,135 if you live away from home in London, £10,830 if you live away from home outside London and £9,118 if you live with your parents. It then tapers with household income down to a basic rate that everyone gets regardless of income, which is £7,039 in London, £5,048 outside London and £4,013 living at home. Final-year students receive slightly less than students in earlier years.

The loan is means-tested on household income. Students from households earning £25,000 or below receive the full amount. Above that the loan falls by £1 for every £6.54 of household income if you live with parents, every £6.47 living away outside London, and every £6.36 in London. It stops falling once the basic rate is reached, which happens at a household income of £58,347 for students at home, £62,410 outside London and £70,131 in London. At £45,000 of household income the award works out at £10,991 in London, £7,739 outside London and £6,060 living with parents.

Enter your household income and where you plan to live, and the correct taper is applied to give an estimated annual, termly and weekly amount. Money reaches you in three instalments across the year, usually at the start of each term. The figures are for years before your final year: the final-year loan is lower because SLC stops paying after the last day of term, and the calculator does not adjust for that. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run separate systems, so students there should use the appropriate devolved calculator. For scale in 2026/27, young Scottish students from households on under £21,000 can receive up to £11,400 through SAAS (a £2,000 bursary plus a £9,400 loan). Welsh students get £15,720 in London, £12,590 elsewhere and £10,685 living at home, split between grant and loan by household income. Northern Irish students can borrow up to £8,352 outside London or £11,699 in London, with a means-tested maintenance grant of up to £3,569 for lower-income households.

Students from England who started a course from 1 August 2023 are on Plan 5. Repayment starts once your income passes £25,000 a year, at which point 9% of everything above the threshold is deducted. A £35,000 salary produces £900 a year, or £75 a month, and £45,000 produces £1,800 a year, or £150 a month. Plan 5 runs for 40 years rather than the 30 that applied under Plan 2, and interest is RPI alone with no percentage added on top. Anything still outstanding after 40 years is written off, though most Plan 5 borrowers are expected to repay in full, which is a real change from the plan it replaced.

Plan 2 covers students from England who started between September 2012 and July 2023. The threshold there is £29,385 in 2026/27, and after the 2025 Budget it will be frozen at that level for three years from April 2027, along with the £52,885 upper interest threshold. The rate is the same 9%, and the term is 30 years from the April after graduation. Interest is RPI plus up to 3%, scaled by income, so lower earners pay RPI and higher earners the full RPI plus 3%. More than half of Plan 2 graduates are expected never to repay in full, with the balance written off at 30 years. That cohort collectively owes the government over £200 billion, the largest asset on its books and one carrying substantial write-off risk.

Voluntary repayments are rarely worth making. Where a balance is going to be written off after 30 or 40 years anyway, paying extra simply hands money to the government that you would otherwise have kept. The exception is high earners, roughly £75k and above on Plan 5 or £80k and above on Plan 2, who are likely to clear the loan in full and can shorten the period over which interest builds. For everyone else the same cash does more in a pension, where it attracts tax relief, in an ISA, or towards a mortgage deposit.

Put the two loans together and the totals grow quickly. Tuition at £9,790 a year comes to £29,370 over three years, and a maintenance loan of £10,830 a year adds £32,490, so a typical English student starts work owing £61,860. Interest accrued during study adds roughly £3k to £6k, pushing the opening balance past £65k. Across a working life the average Plan 5 graduate repays £35,000 to £50,000 in total. Someone on around £100k repays in full with heavy interest, past £80k, while a graduate averaging under £30k over a career repays £8,000 to £15,000 and has the rest written off.