Rejected petition Remove Interest from UK Student Loans

We call on Parliament to remove interest on UK student loans. In 2024–25, £15.2bn in interest was added while only £5bn was repaid — roughly 3x as much. Graduates enter repayment with average debts of around £53,000, and around 75% are expected to never repay in full.

More details

• Lower and middle earners often pay mainly interest, while high earners clear loans more quickly. In 2024–25, 67% of those repaying student loans added more interest than they paid, and 2.2m people now owe £50k+.
• Repayments add 9% on top of tax and NI, pushing marginal rates towards 60%. The Times reports graduates typically need to earn ~£66k before reducing the balance.
• Unlike other debts, student loans cannot be cleared through bankruptcy and are repaid via the tax system for 30+ years.

This petition was rejected

Why was this petition rejected?

There’s already a petition about this issue. We cannot accept a new petition when we already have one about a very similar issue.

You are more likely to get action on this issue if you sign and share a single petition.

You may wish to sign the following petition which calls for the same action:

Abolish interest charges on student loans
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/756832

We only reject petitions that don’t meet the petition standards.

Date submitted 29 January 2026
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