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England's Plan 5 loan examples stopped below average pay — what higher earners repay

Twelve universities in England built their student loan repayment examples on salaries that stayed below the UK average of £39,039. The BBC reviewed publicly available information on more than 110 university websites in England and published the findings on 6 November 2026. The salary a page picks changes the number a reader takes away: the same Plan 5 loan can look like £22 a month or £187 a month depending on whose pay it is modelled on.

Twelve England universities used salaries below the UK average

The review covered more than 110 university websites in England. It found cases of inaccurate information about the salary at which repayments begin and about how long borrowers repay, and it identified 12 universities that gave worked repayment examples only for earnings under the UK average of £39,039.

The monthly figures those pages used:

Gloucestershire's page put a £26,000 salary at £7.47 a month, summarised in the article's list as £7.50. Northumbria and Huddersfield based their £75 on £35,000.

Not every page was thin. More than a dozen universities used higher-than-average salaries in their examples, and most of the 110-plus sites gave no worked example at all.

Four pages carried factual errors: the University of Exeter said Plan 5 loans were written off a decade earlier than they are, Royal Holloway and Edge Hill listed the wrong repayment thresholds, and Harper Adams said students from England were still on Plan 2. All four universities updated their websites after the BBC contacted them.

The Department for Education's own published figures show monthly repayment examples only up to £38,400, and those cover other loan plans rather than Plan 5.

Dame Meg Hillier, who chairs the Treasury Committee and led an inquiry into student loans this year, called some of the published repayment information "misleading". She singled out Northumbria's line that graduates would be "repaying an amount less than the cost of a daily coffee", which was removed after the BBC approached the university. She said the DfE should take the lead by reflecting repayments for higher earners, and that universities also have a responsibility to the young people they take on for three or four years.

Responses varied. Birmingham, Gloucestershire and Harper Adams said they had updated their pages; Birkbeck said it was reviewing its information. Sheffield described its example as illustrative, Manchester Metropolitan and Wolverhampton said theirs were explanatory and would be reviewed, and London South Bank said it reviews website content regularly. The Open University said it had chosen income levels most likely to reflect its students' circumstances, while Portsmouth said its figure came from Student Finance England and would be updated to reflect the most recent average salary. Northumbria said £35,000 was "broadly in line with the average for full-time workers in the North East of England" and that it would further review its pages. Birmingham City University declined to comment and the BBC said it had asked Huddersfield for a comment.

The DfE said its guidance sets out how repayments are calculated across the different repayment plans, and that it had "committed to reviewing the information we provide following the Treasury Committee's recommendations". It added that it is working with universities to ensure the information they give students is clear and up to date.

What a Plan 5 loan actually requires

Current and prospective students in England take out Plan 5 loans to cover tuition fees and living costs. Repayment is 9% of earnings above £25,000, taken for 40 years or until the loan is paid off.

GOV.UK's repayment guidance confirms the 9% rate for Plan 5 alongside Plans 1, 2 and 4, charged on income over the threshold for the plan. A repayment is triggered whenever pay in a week or month passes the threshold, including in a month with bonus or overtime; if annual income ends up below the yearly threshold, the borrower can ask for a refund at the end of the tax year. Two jobs are assessed separately rather than combined, so pay above the threshold in one job is not offset by low pay in another.

Plan 5 applies to Student Finance England borrowers who started their course from August 2023; anyone who started between September 2012 and July 2023 is on Plan 2. GOV.UK's overseas guidance defines a Plan 5 customer the same way, as someone funded by Student Finance England on or after 1 August 2023. The tuition fee loan covers full tuition up to £9,790 for full-time students in 2026/27.

The gap between £75 and £187 a month

Repayment is linear above the threshold, which is why the salary chosen for an example matters so much. At £30,000 a year, the monthly repayment is £37.50; at £100,000 it is £562.50.

Megan Russon, 21, is a recently graduated tax accountant from Cannock. She started on around £29,000 and repays about £30 a month. She expects to earn around £50,000 when she becomes chartered in three years, at which point the repayment rises to about £187 a month. She owes about £62,000 after a three-year accounting and finance degree at the University of Birmingham.

She said the examples she saw at open days ran from £25,000 to £45,000, with graduates told they "wouldn't even notice the repayments because they should be minimal". "When I was at university, I started realising the salaries that I was going to be on after I graduated, then I started realising actually this is going to be impacting me quite a lot," she said.

Two different averages, one benchmark

£39,039 is the UK average salary used as the benchmark in the BBC's analysis. It is not the same measure as an average graduate starting salary.

High Fliers Research's Graduate Market in 2025, summarised by the University of Bristol in a release dated 4 September 2025, put the average graduate salary at £35,000, £1,000 higher than the year before and 16.7% up on 2021.

Read side by side, the highest of the twelve examples — £75 a month on £35,000 — sits at the level of an average graduate starting salary at the country's leading employers, not at a mid-career one. Above that line, the examples stop.

If you are applying from outside the UK

Plan 5 is funding administered by Student Finance England, and eligibility turns on nationality and residency. UK nationals, Irish citizens and people with settled status in the UK are among those who can apply, with the exact entitlement depending on where they live. Part-time students need a course intensity of at least 25% of a full-time course to qualify for a tuition fee loan.

That distinction matters when a UK degree is being compared from abroad. The £25,000 threshold, the 9% rate and the 40-year term describe a loan that eligible home-fee students repay out of later earnings. An applicant who does not meet the nationality and residency conditions is not borrowing on those terms, so changes to how repayment examples are presented do not alter the cost of their degree; their budget starts from the fee they are charged rather than from a threshold.

What a complete repayment example has to show

Five things separate a worked example that informs a decision from one that decorates a page.

  1. The plan. Courses funded by Student Finance England from August 2023 sit on Plan 5.
  2. The threshold. £25,000 for Plan 5 — a low threshold is what makes the monthly number look small.
  3. The term. 40 years, or until the balance is cleared.
  4. One salary above £39,039. Without it, the top of the income range is missing.
  5. One mid-career salary. At £50,000 the monthly figure is about £187; at £100,000 it is £562.50.

An example that stops at £26,000 or £35,000 answers a question most applicants are not yet asking: what would I pay if I earned roughly what I earn now. The question that shapes a career decision is what happens above £39,039, and that is the part the twelve pages left blank.

Repayments if you leave the UK

Plan 5 repayments follow the borrower rather than the country. Overseas thresholds are set for each country and reviewed once a year on 6 April, based on living costs measured by the Price Level Index. The exchange rate used to convert a salary into pounds is the average rate for the most recent calendar year published by HMRC.

Monthly-paid borrowers are assessed on the average of their last three payslips multiplied by 12; weekly-paid borrowers on the average of the last 12 weeks multiplied by 52. Superannuation payments are excluded from the calculation. Repayment is 9% of the amount above the relevant overseas threshold, split over 12 months.

Borrowers who do not update the Student Loans Company with their overseas income are expected to pay the fixed monthly amount for the country they live in, and may be charged the highest rate of interest on the balance.

Questions readers ask about Plan 5 examples

Who is on Plan 5 rather than Plan 2?

Student Finance England borrowers who started their course from August 2023 are on Plan 5; those who started between September 2012 and July 2023 are on Plan 2. GOV.UK defines a Plan 5 customer the same way, as someone funded by Student Finance England on or after 1 August 2023. Access to that funding turns on nationality and residency, with UK nationals, Irish citizens and people with settled status among those who can apply.

How is the monthly figure calculated?

9% of earnings above £25,000, spread across the year: £37.50 at £30,000 and £562.50 at £100,000. The deduction is triggered per pay period once income passes the threshold, and a refund can be claimed at the end of the tax year if annual income finishes below the yearly threshold.

Does the DfE review change anything for 2027-28 applicants?

The reporting gives no date for corrected figures. The DfE said it had committed to reviewing the information it provides, and universities whose pages were queried said those pages would be reviewed where necessary. Four universities with factual errors had already updated their sites by the time the story was published. GOV.UK's undergraduate finance guidance separately carries a notice that student finance is changing for courses starting on or after 1 January 2027, without setting out the detail of those changes.

Can the total cost of a three-year Plan 5 loan be worked out from these figures?

Not from this reporting, which does not set out Plan 5 interest rates. The balance depends on how much is borrowed each year and on earnings afterwards. The one balance in the record is about £62,000 after a three-year accounting and finance degree.

Who checks that a university's repayment example is accurate?

The reporting names no regulator for these pages. The pressure it documents runs through the Treasury Committee, whose chair called some of the information misleading and said she would raise it with MPs and urge them to write to universities in their constituencies, and through the DfE's commitment to review its own guidance. The National Union of Students' Lewis Wilson said students should be able to rely on information from their universities, and that if this were any other financial product it would have crossed the line into mis-selling.

Sources

BBC News, "'Misleading' student loans information left out examples of higher-salary repayments", 6 November 2026. GOV.UK, "Student finance for undergraduates: Eligibility". UCAS, "Student finance in England". GOV.UK, "Repaying your student loan: How much you repay". University of Bristol, "Bristol graduates remain in high demand from top UK employers", 4 September 2025, summarising High Fliers Research's Graduate Market in 2025.