Student Loan Debt 2026: £296.6bn Outstanding in England

The detail

The Student Loans Company's statistics for England show £294.6 billion of higher education income-contingent loans outstanding at the end of financial year 2025-26, plus £2.0 billion of further education loans (Advanced Learner Loans), £296.6 billion in all. The higher education figure includes £6.0 billion owed by EU borrowers. These are England figures only, not a UK-wide total.

The higher education balance rose from £266.6 billion at the end of 2024-25, an increase of £28.0 billion or 10.5%. That is slower than the average growth of 13.5% a year over the previous four years. The balance grows because new lending and interest added outweigh repayments and write-offs: in 2025-26, £21.3 billion was lent to higher education students (£20.5 billion undergraduate), £12.2 billion of interest was added, and higher education borrowers repaid £5.3 billion.

Interest added fell 19.4% in 2025-26, from £15.2 billion, which SLC attributes to the continued fall in RPI. Plan 5 loans, for courses starting from 1 August 2023, carry interest at RPI and made up 10.4% of the higher education balance in 2025-26.

Plan 5 borrowers repay 9% of income above £25,000 a year, and any balance left is written off 40 years after the April they were first due to repay. Plan 2 loans (courses from September 2012 to July 2023) are written off after 30 years. Repayments therefore stay low relative to lending for many years, which is why the balance keeps rising.