Student loans are taxes in disguise, exclusive research for Spectator Money reveals

It’s ten years since I graduated and I’ve just managed to clear my student loan, which isn’t a bad achievement on a journalist’s salary.

The day I finished my politics and economics degree, my debt stood at £11,500. That covered the course and living costs for three years of study and a year spent in industry – for which I still had to pay half the annual course fee despite not setting foot on campus. In the years that followed, interest started to mount up and added another several thousand pounds onto my repayments.

I count myself lucky to have repaid my loan after such a relatively short period compared to how long it could take those graduating right now. Of course, I wasn’t lucky enough to have benefited from a free university education like my parents’ generation did but at least I was fortunate enough to have dodged the £9,000 annual fee my beloved University of Bath now charges.