These are the grads with the most outrageous amounts of student debt in the UK right now

The biggest student loan owed by one person is over £230,000

1 month ago | UPDATED 1 month ago

The highest amount of student loan debt owed by one person is £230,000, data obtained from the Student Loans Company has revealed.

The BBC sent a series of Freedom of Information Requests to the SLC and found that the biggest repayment of a student loan made by one person is over £110,000 and another grad has accumulated an extra £55,000 in interest on top of their loan.

But the biggest total debt owed by one person is £230,000 and they are known to have studied “multiple courses”. Other high amounts include someone who owes £129,582.31 and another who has £124,204.07 in debt. The average debt most uni grads leave with is £44,940.

Dr Luke Amos, a junior doctor who graduated from St George’s University of London in 2022 currently has a student loan debt of more than £103,000 which he described as a “joke. He told The BBC his student debt “became almost a joke when I saw the outstanding balance break the £100,000 barrier.”

“You almost become de-sensitised to how big the number is getting, although it still shocks friends and family,” he said.

Dr Luke Amos (Via LinkedIn)

The 27-year-old – who started a three-year course in 2015, followed by a four-year medical degree, added: “I have no hope of paying off the loan in full, it would take considerable expense to pay off a penny more than the interest, to make even the smallest dent in the outstanding amount.” Just this year he paid off £1,000 of the loan but tax added an extra £5,900.

But his debt is less than half of the biggest balance known to the SLC.

Another grad, Craig Rossiter has a debt of over £61,000. He dropped out of five uni degrees, initially due to his struggles with depression and drug abuse, and then needing to get a full-time job after having a baby. He sees his “debt as a graduate tax that will be with me forever”, and is especially worried about how changes to the repayment term could impose “a huge extra cost” he will struggle to meet.

Craig thinks the high debt burden especially penalises those who struggle most at university. “There are things I did wrong but people from a working class background like myself and who go to the schools I went to aren’t as prepared,” he told The Guardian.

It’s been nearly 15 years since tuition fees tripled in the UK and last year, the i Paper found that at least 8,000 people owed more than £100k in debt.

A spokesperson for Student Loans Company said: “These exceptional balances are a function of government policy that in certain circumstances exempts specific courses from repeat study restrictions, permits funding for additional years of study, and results in SLC awarding additional years of funding when an individual demonstrates compelling personal reasons.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said a “sustainable student finance system” fair to students and taxpayers was “vital”.

“We’ve taken action to protect students from high costs by freezing tuition fees for the 2023/24 and 2024/25 academic years”, they said.

“Our reforms also mean that under the new repayment plan, no new graduate will pay back more than they originally borrowed when inflation is taken into account, and those who earn less than the repayment threshold will not have to make any repayments.”