There's been a lot of advice shouted about that everyone should only make the minimum payments as it'll be cheaper when the debt is eventually written off - if you earn less than £X.

That only works if the rules stay the same.

I say it's a fair gamble that they won't and that many will wish they paid them off earlier.

I'm self-employed and owed them the money that I would've otherwise paid through PAYE.

It's not going to be unusual with the interest rates that students on the current generation of loans are now being charged. In fact, those might well be the most expensive debts a new graduate has. The whole thing about writing off part of the loan after several decades is mostly just smoke and mirrors; many people in graduate roles won't save much if anything that way, but they'll be paying lots of extra money that looks a lot like an extra 9% of marginal income tax except that somehow it mysteriously winds up belonging to a private company these days.

I'm genuinely surprised that high street banks haven't started openly competing with the official student loans already, at least not as far as I've seen. The terms are so abusive for new students today that the banks could easily offer private student loans on significantly better terms for the students and still make a fortune themselves. Maybe they're just assuming -- not unreasonably -- that the whole student funding mess is going to blow up spectacularly within the next few years and they don't want to be caught in the blast when it happens.

I paid off SLC in a lump sum after getting a bonus one year. I think it's quite normal.