Cost of a Degree Calculator

The short answer

• Tuition fees are capped at £9,790 a year in 2026/27, about £30,000 for a three-year degree.
• The maintenance loan is up to £10,830 a year away from home outside London, less if your household income is over £25,000.
• A student from a household on £25,000 could borrow about £64,000 over three years, rising to about £68,000 with interest by graduation.
• Repayments are 9% of income over £25,000, for up to 40 years. Many graduates never repay the full balance.

The parts of the cost

For an English student on a course starting in 2026, the cost of a degree has three parts:

1. Tuition fees, paid straight to the university by a tuition fee loan;
2. Living costs, partly covered by a maintenance loan paid to you each term;
3. Interest, added to the loan from the day each payment is made.

Both loans are added together into one Plan 5 balance. The calculator adds them up year by year, then projects what you would repay after graduating.

Tuition fees

The fee cap for full-time undergraduate courses in England rose to £9,535 in 2025/26 and to £9,790 in 2026/27, the first rises since 2017. The government plans to raise it with inflation in future years, so the calculator assumes a 3% rise a year unless you change it. On that assumption a three-year course starting in 2026 costs about £30,260 in fees; a four-year course about £40,960.

Accelerated two-year degrees can charge up to £11,750 a year, and private providers that are not approved for the full fee loan may be limited to £6,525 a year of loan.

Maintenance loans

The loan falls as household income rises above £25,000, down to the minimum at about £58,000 to £70,000 depending on where you live. Use the maintenance loan calculator for your exact figure.

Interest while you study

Plan 5 loans charge interest at RPI only: 4.1% from September 2026, based on March 2026 RPI. That is lower than older Plan 2 loans, which charge up to RPI plus 3% while you study. Interest is added from the day each payment is made, so by graduation the balance is already larger than what you borrowed: about £3,900 more on a £63,700 three-year loan at 3%.

Worked examples

Four years in London from a low-income household would mean borrowing about £100,000, or £107,700 by graduation.

How Plan 5 repayment works

• Repayments start the April after you leave your course.
• You repay 9% of your income over £25,000 a year (£2,083 a month), through your payslip.
• The threshold rises with RPI from April 2027.
• Anything left is written off 40 years after you were first due to repay.

On a starting salary of £28,000 you repay £270 in the first year, £22.50 a month. On £40,000, it is £1,350 a year. See the Plan 5 calculator for your own figures.

Why borrowing less may not save you anything

Look at the two examples above. One student borrows £63,734, the other £45,863. If they both start on £28,000 and get pay rises of 4.5% a year, they repay exactly the same: about £100,064 over 40 years. The difference is only in how much is written off: £78,761 against £16,271.

The real cost: what you repay

These are cash totals over decades. Because they are spread over 40 years of rising prices, they are worth much less in today’s money. Even so, for a typical graduate the loan works out as an extra 9% tax on earnings above £25,000 for most of their career.

Living costs the loan does not cover

For many students the maintenance loan does not cover rent and food. Student rents outside London often run at £150 to £200 a week for 44 to 51 weeks, which alone can use up most of the loan. Plan your first year with the student budget calculator, and remember costs the loan does not pay for: books, equipment, field trips, laptops and travel home.

The parental contribution

When household income is over £25,000, the maintenance loan is reduced on the assumption that parents will make up the difference. There is no legal duty to pay, and no one checks, but the gap can be large: at £62,410 of household income, a student living away from home gets £5,048 instead of £10,830, a gap of £5,782 a year.

Ways to reduce the cost

• Apply for university bursaries and scholarships, which do not have to be repaid.
• Live at home if your university is close enough: rent savings can outweigh the smaller loan.
• Work part-time, ideally no more than 15 hours a week in term time.
• Consider a degree apprenticeship, where your employer pays the fees and you earn a wage.
• Only take the maintenance loan you need: you can ask for less each year.

Students from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Scottish students at Scottish universities pay no tuition fees: see the SAAS funding calculator. Welsh students get a non-repayable grant of at least £1,020 alongside their loan: see the Welsh student finance calculator. Northern Ireland has lower fees at its own universities and Plan 1 loans.

The assumptions behind the numbers

The calculator adds each year’s loans at the start of the year and charges a year’s interest on the balance. After graduating, it uses 2026/27 interest for the first year, then the RPI you choose, a Plan 5 threshold of £25,000 rising with RPI, and your pay rising by the rate you choose. Real careers rarely follow a straight line, so treat the repayment figures as a guide to the shape of the cost, not a forecast.

Placement years and years abroad

A sandwich year in industry or a year abroad adds a year to your course. Universities charge much less for these years: the fee is capped at 20% of the full fee for a placement year and 15% for a year abroad, and you may get a reduced maintenance loan or a Turing Scheme grant to help with costs abroad. If you are paid on a placement, you can save towards your final year. Set the course length to include the extra year to see its effect.

Adding a master’s degree

A Postgraduate Loan of over £12,000 can help pay for a master’s course. It is repaid at 6% of income over £21,000, on top of your undergraduate repayments, so a graduate with both pays 15% of income above the thresholds. See the Postgraduate Loan calculator.

Degree, apprenticeship or work?

Degree apprenticeships are competitive and not available for every subject, but for those who get one they remove the loan altogether.

What repayments look like each month

Repayments come straight out of your pay, so it helps to think of them monthly. On £28,000 a year, 9% of the £3,000 over the threshold is £270 a year, or £22.50 a month. On £35,000 it is £75 a month; on £45,000, £150 a month; on £60,000, £262.50 a month. Because the threshold rises with inflation from 2027, a pay rise that only keeps up with prices does not increase what you repay in real terms.

If you become self-employed or work abroad

If you are self-employed, student loan repayments are worked out on your Self Assessment return and paid with your tax bill. If you move abroad, you repay the Student Loans Company directly, with a threshold set for the country you live in. You must tell the Student Loans Company if you leave the UK for more than 3 months; if you do not, it can charge fixed repayments that may be higher.

Nursing, teaching and other funded routes

Some courses have extra help. Nursing, midwifery and many allied health students in England can get the NHS Learning Support Fund, a grant of at least £5,000 a year on top of the normal loans. Teacher training can come with bursaries or scholarships in shortage subjects. Medicine and dentistry students get NHS bursaries in the later years of their course. Check your course’s funding page, because these can reduce what you borrow.

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