This guide is designed for medical students, doctors and their families to understand how funding during medical school and subsequent repayment is structured. The guide includes helpful information for different groups such as parents of future medical students, pre-med and current medical students, graduate-entry medical students and current doctors.
What is a student loan?
There are several kinds of student loans and bursaries available to students who have indefinite leave to remain/settled status in the UK. If you are a UK citizen or are considered a “home student” then you are entitled to student loans from the Student Loans Company. You must also have been living in the UK for the previous three years before starting your studies.
This module will focus on the student loans that medical students are most likely to access; undergraduate loans, graduate-entry medicine loans, and the plans very new doctors are likely to be repaying currently. We will also cover what happens when medical students move onto the NHS Bursary. The course must be at a recognised publicly funded university or college (or a private institution studying a course approved for public funding). Undergraduates can only access a 4-year undergraduate loan once. If they go on to do another undergraduate degree, this needs to be self-funded. There is a separate graduate-entry medicine loan available for students undertaking 4-year graduate-entry medicine degrees.
The undergraduate student loan has two components; tuition fee loan (paid directly to the university) and maintenance loan (paid to your nominated bank account each term).
Tuition Fees Per Year:
Students studying in England: £9,535pa
Students studying in Wales: £9,535pa
Students from Scotland studying in Scotland: £0
Students from Northern Ireland studying in Northern Ireland: £4,855
NB some fees above commence from August/September 2025 so please be aware of this!
| Payment Period | Proportion of Loan |
| Beginning of Term 1 | 25% of tuition fee |
| Beginning of Term 2 | 25% of tuition fee |
| Beginning of Term 3 | 50% of tuition fee |
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The maintenance loan component is means-tested and depends on your household income. Household income defined:
- If you live with one or both of your parents, have not been “independent” and are under 25 years old, your household income would be your parental income.
- For your parental income not to be considered for maintenance loan purposes, and to be considered an “independent student” you need to meet on of the following criteria:
- If you’re married, in a civil partnership, or over 25 and living with your partner, Student Finance England will ask your partner for their National Insurance number and personal income details.
- Evidence: your marriage or civil partnership certificate
- If you’re married, in a civil partnership, or over 25 and living with your partner, Student Finance England will ask your partner for their National Insurance number and personal income details.
- you care for a person under the age of 18 on the first day of the academic year you’re applying for student finance
- Evidence: your child(ren)’s birth certificates, adoption certificates or letter from social services if caring for minor siblings or relatives
- you’re 25 or over on the first day of the academic year you’re applying for student finance
- Evidence: birth certificate or passport
- you’ve been married or in a civil partnership before the start of the academic year (even if you’re now divorced or separated
- Evidence: your marriage or civil partnership certificate
- you have no living parents
- Evidence: their death certificates
- you’ve supported yourself for at least three years before the first day of the first academic year of your course
- Evidence: photocopies of your P60s, or a letter from your employer(s)
- your parents can’t be traced, or it’s not practical or possible to contact them (see estrangement below)
- your parents live outside the EU and an income assessment would put them in jeopardy, or it’s not reasonably practical for them to send funds to the UK to help support you
- you’ve not communicated with your parents for one year before the start of the academic year that you’re applying for student finance, or you can demonstrate you’re permanently estranged from your parents
- Evidence: a letter from your social worker, a doctor, teacher or person of good standing in the community (solicitor, religious leader or counsellor) who knows your situation or police reports showing any related incidents
- you’ve been in care for any three-month period ending on or after the date you turned 16, and before the first day of the first academic year of your course
- Evidence: a letter from your local council or care authority
How household income affects maintenance loan award:
Parental or partner income is considered for means-testing from £25,000. If household income is below £25,000, the student is entitled to full maintenance loan. The amount of the maintenance loan award gradually decreases until household income is £70,000 or more- where the student is awarded the minimum amount of maintenance loan (half of maximum award).
The minimum Maintenance Loan on offer for students from England is £3,907. This is paid to students with a household income of £58,291 or more who will live at home during their time at uni. The maximum Maintenance Loan is £13,762. This is paid to students who will be living away from home and in London, and whose annual household income is £25,000 or less.
How term-time location affects loan award:
More funding is available to students who will be living away from home. There is also more funding for those living away from home and in London.
Additional Weeks’ Award:
If you’re on an accelerated course where you’d be studying for more weeks than a normal degree during the academic year, additional funding is available. Your course-provider must ensure the Student Loans Company is aware of the course length for you to be entitled to the additional weeks’ award.
What are the actual amounts of maintenance loan? (for 2025/26)
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/tuition-fees-and-student-support-2025-to-2026-academic-year/support-with-living-costs-2025-to-2026-academic-year
What are the pros and cons of taking out a student loan?
| Pros | Cons |
| Covers tuition fees for four years | The means-tested element can be punitive |
| Helps widen participation in higher education | The current maintenance loan does not cover cost of living |
| Debt does not impact our credit score | There is an expectation for students to have parental contributions or top-up their income with work |
| If you don’t earn above the threshold, you don’t repay | The debt graduates leave with can cause psychological distress |
| The debt is wiped after 30yrs/40yrs/death | The interest rate means the debt accumulates faster than it can be paid off |
| The debt is not passed on after your death | Doctors will likely be paying the 9% repayment throughout their careers |
| The 9% repayment is calculated on pre=tax income but paid out of post-deduction income, so is not tax-efficient |
How do you apply for a student loan?
The best way to apply is online, however, there is an option to apply by post. It is recommended to apply as early as possible when the application window opens to allow for time to process the application. Applications for full-time undergraduate funding for 2025-2026 can be submitted from the end of March 2025. You can still apply for funding up to 9 months after the first day of the academic year for your course.
You will need to submit your household income and the details for your parent(s) or partner, depending on your personal circumstances, for them to submit further evidence. You will also be required to submit ID documentation at this stage.
Continuing students will receive a reminder to apply for the next year using their online student finance account.
How do you receive your student loan payments and what should you do with them?
Student loan payment are split into roughly 3 equal payments (once per term) and paid directly into your nominated bank account. You can amend your bank account details anytime on your online Student Finance account.
We recommend having a separate day-to-day current account into which you pay yourself a monthly “salary” based on your budget. There is a trend amongst students to “blow the student loan” when it is paid and having a separate account will help minimise the temptation to spend it all at once. That loan payment needs to cover a whole term.
What are the different undergraduate student loan plans?
Plan 1:
You started university between 1998 – 2011 in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland or Wales (wiped after 30 years from the April after you leave university) or you’re studying in Northern Ireland after 2012 (wiped 25 years from the April after you leave university)
9% of everything they earn over £22,015 a year (or over £1,835 per month)
The interest rate is the lower of the following:
- The Bank of England base rate, plus 1%
- The rate of inflation. This is fixed for a year on 1 September based on the Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure from the previous March, though the actual rate is only officially confirmed each August.
March 2022’s inflation rate was 9%, which is more than the Bank of England base rate (5.25%) plus 1%. So the current interest rate is 6.25%.
Until 2012 there was no ‘real’ cost to borrowing money via student loans, as the interest rate was set at the rate of inflation (measured by RPI).
Plan 2:
You started university between 2012 – 2022 in England or you started university after 2012 in Wales (wiped 30 years from the first April after you leave university)
The maximum maintenance loan is £13,022
Graduates repay 9% of everything they earn over £27,295 (£2,274 a month)
While studying: Usually accrues RPI inflation plus 3% on the outstanding balance. This continues until the first April after graduation, when it changes to…
After studying, earning under £27,295/year (2023/24): Usually accrues RPI inflation.
After studying, earning £27,295 – £49,130/year (2023/24): The interest rate will gradually rise from RPI to RPI plus up to 3% as you earn more (the interest rises 0.00015% for every extra pound you earn or, put another way, if you earn £1,000 more, you accrue 0.15% extra interest).
After studying, earning over £49,130/year (2023/24): Usually accrues at RPI inflation plus 3%.
It’s also worth noting that if inflation is above the ‘prevailing market rate’ – meaning it’s costing more than other typical commercial loans – the Government will step in and cap the interest rates students are charged.
The rate you pay changes each September, and uses the previous March’s RPI inflation rate.
In March 2022, RPI was at 9%. But as this was unusually high, the Government decided to temporarily cap student loan interest. It’s currently 7.6% from January 2024.
The rate of inflation is currently 7.5%
Plan 4:
You’re a Scottish student studying from 2021 in Scotland (wipes 30 years from the first April after you leave university)
Plan 5:
You’re starting university from 2023 in England (wipes 40 years from the April you were first due to repay)
The £25,000 threshold is frozen until 2027, when it is ‘planned’ to increase with inflation. The repayment threshold will begin to increase annually by RPI from April 2025.
How do you repay your student loan?
- Most doctors will repay their student loan via Pay As You Earn (PAYE) which is automatically done by their employer’s payroll. You do not need to do anything.
- Any income from self-employment needs to be declared on a self-assessment tax return for the HMRC to bill you for the correct income tax and student loan repayment.
- Your “income” for student loan purposes isn’t just your salary, it’s also any non-ISA interest, non-ISA dividends, self-employment/side hustle income and certain state benefits.
- You still need to continue repaying your student loan, even if you move abroad
Should you try to overpay your student loan payments or pay it off early?
- Interest will accumulate faster than you can repay with modest overpayments (up to a point)
- It is important to crunch the numbers and see if the growth of the debt will outstrip the overpayments you can make as the money could be put to better use elsewhere
Helpful information for pre-medical students and their parents/guardians
- There is an implicit expectation that parent(s) will make up the shortfall in living costs that the awarded maintenance loan does not meet. Therefore, it is important to plan for this.
- Parents may consider taking a bank loan or remortgaging to pay for university studies. We recommend researching this option thoroughly and taking into account the positive aspects of a student loan (does not affect credit score, no repayment if earning below threshold, wiped after 40yrs/death) when making a decision.
- The penultimate and final year of medical school are covered by the NHS Bursary, which is not anywhere near as much as the maintenance loan from Student Finance. We recommend planning for this added shortfall with your child.
Helpful information for undergraduate (pre-)medical students:
- Student loans will cover tuition fees and maintenance costs as a loan for the first 3 (without intercalation) or 4 (with intercalation) of your degree.
- The NHS Bursary will cover the penultimate and final years of your degree.
- There is a significant drop in how much you will receive from your NHS Bursary so prepare for this early by saving any parental contributions or parts of your student loan from your first year (see worked example).
Helpful information for graduate-entry (pre-)medical students:
- If you accessed student finance for your first degree then you will only be eligible for student finance to study medicine if you study on a 4-year graduate-entry medicine course.
- If you want to study medicine as a second undergraduate degree then you will have to fund this yourself.
- You will not start paying your first undergraduate student loan back until you start earning the threshold amount, which is unlikely to be during a full-time GEM course. Therefore, you will start paying both back when you start Foundation Training.
- If you were on Plan 1 for your first degree and then Plan 2 for your GEM degree, then you will start paying both back side-by-side due to the different thresholds. This means you student loan repayments will be higher than someone who either did Medicine as a first degree or someone who was on Plan 2 for both.
- This will also be the case if you did you first degree on a Plan 2 loan and will be starting your GEM degree on Plan 5 (see worked examples below).
Helpful information for recently graduated doctors
- Student finance loans do not impact your credit score so will not affect your suitability for gaining credit elsewhere.
- Mortgage lenders will include your student loan repayments in their “Affordability Assessments”.
- You need to continue paying you student loan back even if you move abroad.
- Your debt is wiped at the end of the 30 (Plans 1,2 and 4) and 40 (Plan 5) years after the first April following your graduation.
- The debt does not pass to your next of kin and is wiped in the event of your death.
- The 9% repayment is calculated on any earnings above the relevant plan’s threshold before any tax or deductions (gross) but is paid out of net (after tax and deductions) earnings, therefore, it is not income tax efficient.
References:
- https://www.ucas.com/money-and-student-life/money/student-finance/undergraduate-tuition-fees-and-student-loans
- https://www.ucas.com/finance/student-finance-england/finance-independent-students
- https://www.theuniguide.co.uk/advice/student-finance/how-student-finance-actually-works
- https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/repay-post-2012-student-loan/
- https://www.gov.uk/browse/education/student-finance
- https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/university-living-costs-calculator/
- https://www.savethestudent.org/student-finance/maintenance-loans.html
- https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-student-finance/when
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