Analysis · The Times · 7 July 2026
Scrap freeze on student loan repayment threshold, government told: What It Means for Your Student Loan
Written by Zubair Arshed FIA, Chartered Actuary
Fellow of the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries
Actuarial Post Life and Health Actuary of the Year 2024
The Times reports that ministers are being pressed to scrap the freeze on the student loan repayment threshold, currently locked until at least April 2030. For anyone repaying, a frozen threshold quietly raises how much you pay each year, so ending it would put money back in your pocket.
This analysis responds to reporting by The Times. We recommend reading the original alongside it: Scrap freeze on student loan repayment threshold, government told ↗
What is actually being reported?
The headline tells you the substance: someone is publicly urging the government to end the freeze on the student loan repayment threshold. The threshold is the salary above which you start repaying, and for Plan 2 borrowers it sits at £29,385 for 2025-26. That figure has been frozen and, under current policy, stays frozen until at least April 2030.
A freeze sounds harmless. It is not. Wages rise most years, whether through pay rises, promotions or simply inflation. When the threshold stays still while pay climbs, a larger slice of your income falls into the repayment zone. Economists call this fiscal drag, and it works exactly like a stealth tax increase.
We only have the headline, so treat the outcome as a call for change rather than a done deal. Governments have been lobbied on thresholds before and left them frozen. What matters for you is understanding the mechanics, so you can judge how much any reversal would be worth.