British Democracy(?) 63 thousand UK students overcharged

The British government’s student loan collector has overcharged former students by GBP tens of millions in a single year with some students claiming they even paid more than what the government is ready to refund.

The Student Loan Company (SLC) collected as additional £36.5 million from ex-students in 2010-2011 and the government is now calling on those concerned to apply for refunds.

The figure shows more than 63,000 ex-students who have been repaying their loans after graduation from universities overpaid an average £577, while many of them say the real figure is bigger and amounts to thousands of pounds.

The SLC has a history of overcharging ex-students but it has been pledging all along to tackle the problem.

Despite such promises, the 2010-2011 figure is so far the greatest annual over-payment which was £22 million in 2009-2010, £19 million in 2008-2009 and almost £16 million in 2007-2008.

The organization, whose chief executive resigned in 2010 over the embarrassments, blamed the issue on lack of communication between the SLC and the HM Revenue and Customs.

The organization claims HMRC only informs it of how much a student has paid once a year therefore many graduates who have repaid their loans to the full before the end of the fiscal year in April could continue to pay installments until the SLC gets the information and stops their payments.