EyeOnKey terms A–Z
Quick definitions in plain English. Meanings and rules can vary by country and provider.
- Bursary / scholarship
- A financial award, often based on need, merit or circumstances.
- Deferment / forbearance
- A pause in repayments under certain conditions.
- Federal vs private loan
- In the US, federal loans have government terms; private loans come from banks and vary more.
- Grant
- Money for study that does not usually have to be repaid.
- Income-contingent repayment
- Repayments are a percentage of income above a threshold, not a fixed amount.
- Interest on student loans
- The rate added to the balance, which may be linked to inflation or income.
- Maintenance loan
- Borrowing to help with living costs while you study.
- Overpayment
- Paying more than required, which may or may not be beneficial depending on your plan.
- Postgraduate loan
- Borrowing for a master's or doctoral course.
- Repayment plan
- The set of rules that determines how and when you repay, depending on when you started.
- Repayment threshold
- The income level above which you start repaying.
- Subsidised loan
- A loan where interest is paid by the government while you are studying.
- Tuition fee loan
- Borrowing that covers the cost of your course fees.
- Write-off date
- The point after which any remaining balance is cancelled under some plans.
The usual structure
Most systems separate two kinds of support: help with tuition or fees, paid to the institution, and help with living costs, paid to the student. Each can be grants (not repaid) or loans (repaid under defined terms), and many countries blend both.
The distinctive feature of most student loans is income-based repayment: payments rise and fall with earnings, and any remaining balance may eventually be written off after a set period. This makes them behave differently from ordinary loans, where the payment is fixed regardless of income.
How repayment differs from ordinary loans
Because repayment depends on income rather than the size of the debt, owing more does not always mean paying more per month. In several systems, people whose earnings stay below a threshold make no payments at all, and balances are simply written down over time.
This design changes the mental model: the relevant question is often not "how big is my balance?" but "what will my earnings pattern be?" Interest treatment varies widely — some systems charge inflation-linked interest, others subsidise it — and the fine print decides a lot.
Student finance and credit files
Whether student loans appear on credit files depends entirely on the country. In some markets public student loans are invisible to credit bureaus; in others they are ordinary accounts. Private student loans are usually reported everywhere.
Where student loans are not reported, they still influence mortgage-style assessments indirectly, because lenders often ask about them or can see repayment deductions. The honest summary: check how it works where you live rather than assuming either way.
Before borrowing
The financial case for education borrowing rests on the gap between course costs and expected earnings change — a personal calculation, not a general one. Living-cost borrowing deserves as much attention as fee borrowing, because it is where over-borrowing most often happens.
Official student finance bodies in each country publish repayment calculators and write-off rules; those are the figures to plan with. The loan comparison calculator can illustrate how different interest and term assumptions change a repayment picture generally.