More than one million Brits paid too much on their student loan last year – here’s how to reclaim money owed

• Money Saving Expert, Martin Lewis revealed the shocking fact this week
• Since then, many people have come forward to share the amount they got back

Nearly one million Brits paid too much money on their student loan last year and are eligible to claim back up to thousands of pounds, it has been revealed.

Money Saving Expert, Martin Lewis, discovered the shocking fact this week after submitting a Freedom of Information Request. 

He shared a video to his X (formerly known as Twitter) account explaining exactly how people repaid and how you can reclaim the money you’re owed.

There is no back date to how far back you can re-claim and there are a lot of people out there who may be due money – ranging from hundreds of pounds to thousands.

Since sharing the advice, many people have come forward to share the amount they got back, with Lewis claiming he’s never got ‘as many quick success reports for anything’.

How you may have overpaid

The Money Saving Expert explained that there are four categories in which you may have overpaid. 

The biggest one which affected 833,000 people, is repaying even though you don’t earn enough to.

You only repay if you earn over a set threshold – for most people that’s just over £27,295.

Lewis explained ‘Let’s take a twelfth of that, the monthly average amount, £2,274. Because you pay this through the payroll, if you earn over £2,274 in a month, they take 9% of whatever is above that to go towards your student loan.

‘Now let’s imagine you only work six months of the year or most months you earn below the £2,274 but you just got some bonus or you worked overtime so for a few months you earned above it.

‘That may mean your student loan repayments were taken, even though in the tax year April-April, you earned less than £27,297.

‘If that happened, you repaid your student loan when you needn’t have done so, so you are eligible to take that money back.’  

The second category which affected 165,000 people is being on the wrong student loan repayment plan.

The Money Saving Expert explained that there are four categories in which you may have overpaid

By default you end up on plan one, which is where you start repaying once you earn over £22,000 – however, most people are supposed to be on plan two.

For the third category, a further 57,000 had money deducted after their loan was fully repaid. 

Finally, 39,000 people starting repaying too early – you are only eligible to repay starting the April after you left university.

How to reclaim 

Reclaiming the money back is simple and can take as little as five minutes.

You will need your old pay slips, payroll number a PAYE reference number.

Simply get in touch with the Student Loans company either online or by phone and tell them that you think you overpaid. 

Lewis advises that even if you don’t have those, get in touch with them anyway, it just slows the process down.

Since sharing the advice, many people have come forward to share the amount they got back, with Lewis claiming he’s never got ‘as many quick success reports for anything’

Users flocked to the experts X account to thank him for bringing the issue to light.

One user wrote ‘I got like £120 back which definitely comes into ‘worth the phone call’ territory. Thanks Martin!’

Another added ‘I waited on the line for about 30 minutes and came away with £241! Chuffed to bits’

Others wrote ‘Just reclaimed £700. Brilliant advice, thanks’ and ‘Thanks Martin, got a refund of £392.

There is no time limit on claiming the cash back so even if it was a long time ago when you attended university, you still could be owed money.

Someone queried ‘Yeah but to be fair I finished uni in 2016’ to which Lewis responded ‘Yep so this is exactly for you’. 

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