Doctor left uni with £125k in scholar mortgage debt and admits ‘I’ll by no means pay it again’
A striking doctor said he faces a shocking £125,000 in student debt less than a year after starting work in the NHS – the doc claimed his amount could balloon to £300k over the coming years
Rob Tucker, 25, on the picket line outside St Thomas’ Hospital(Image: Daily Mirror)
A resident doctor said he will “never pay back” his £125k student loan debt as six days of strike action kicks off.
Resident doctors, formerly known as junior doctors, today started their 15th strike since 2023 with the latest walk out expected to run until Monday morning. The latest strike by British Medical Association members came after talks between the government and the union broke down. Striking doctors raged about pay, a cut to training posts and the cost of living while massive students loans loomed in the background.
Rob Tucker, a doctor on the picket line, slammed the student loan ordeal and said it was “not a sustainable system” as he claimed projections showed his debt could rise to £300,000.
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Rob, a foundation year one doctor based in north London, told the Mirror: “I sit with £125,000 of student debt which was completely not my choice. That was the only way that I could afford it. I didn’t receive a penny from my parents.”
Graduates start to repay off their loans the April after they finish their degrees, if they meet the minimum wage threshold. Rob said he has been in the job for just over eight months so he has not started repaying his loans yet, but revealed the shocking costs he faces in the future.
The 25-year-old claimed his £125,000 loan could spiral into a mammoth £300k by the end of the 30 years repayment period, according to online calculators he has used to project the potential costs.
Rob said: “I sit at 125 one year one, I have been a doctor for just over eight months. I will never pay that back.” The 25-year-old added that he wanted to work for the NHS but said he will spend the next three decades paying back that debt and the interest fees.
He said: “I am purely for the next 30 years, because I am so happy to work on the NHS and I want to, I am going to pay back hundreds of thousands and that will never go down. Probably when it wipes in 30 years the projections of that will be over 300 grand – is what the amount is that I still owe. It is not a sustainable system.”
This comes as the government today announced the interest on some student loans will be capped at 6% in the next academic year, following widespread anger at the debt repayments some graduates have faced. This cap will apply to Plan 2 student loans – which were issued by the government between September 2012 and July 2023 in England. The cap will also apply to Plan 3 loans.
The latest doctors’ strike comes after an offer from the Government was rejected by the BMA’s resident doctors committee. The proposal included a 4.9% increase in average basic pay, which, according to Wes Streeting, would have left resident doctors 35.2% better off than four years ago.
The proposal also included an offer of 1,000 extra training places, although that was taken off the table with Mr Streeting saying it was no longer “financially or operationally” possible as the NHS prepares to deal with the fallout from industrial action.
