Am I eligible for a student maintenance loan?
Looking at https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/who-qualifies, it says: You can only apply if: As you meet all three requirements I think you are counted as a English student in every respect. I would advise applying as soon as possible though to verify this. EDIT: also, getting a British passport anyway might not hurt; it makes sense as you've spent almost all your life here, and it would insulate you against any issues that might arise if Britain ends up leaving the EU.
"&gt;However, the caveat I will add is that if you go into DEBT for your education, you should certainly be thinking about the economic value your education can provide you.  I agree, but we're not going to have that discussion when many parents don't understand debt accurately and the ones that do are the ones whose kids aren't as likely to need big loans.   &gt;At the end of the day though, these findings are all moot unless we can have a conversation about the hyperinflation in college costs directly related to 'free' aka subsidized education.   The hyperinflation isn't because college costs are subsidized - federal loans still have caps. It's because student loans can't be discharged in bankruptcy in the vast majority of cases. That means that private loans are available, which means the federal loan caps are effectively useless.   ""Free"" college would have its challenges, and we'd need to make private loans dischargable in bankruptcy (which would in turn make banks lend to only credit-worthy students/co-signers using appropriate risk models) but then we'd also be able to make other adjustments.   There are some things that we could probably be doing now, but others might be too easily corruptible without the market correction of private loans only to those who are credit-qualified.  We could put more stringent requirements on grade point averages, for example. If you don't hit that, you don't get your free college. You can continue going, if you go get private loans. Not able to qualify? Time to do something else then. Work and save for college, trade school, enter the workforce permanently, etc. (This wouldn't work as well if private loans were still easily obtainable and non-dischargable, because there could be shady dealings to make more people not eligible for the ""free"" assistance with some type of crazy obstacles, etc.)  We could do things like cap the costs for particular programs. If you want to study mechanical engineering, you can get up to X amount, but if you're studying early French poetry, you can only get up to Y amount. Yes, we could do that now, but I don't love the idea of putting those type of restrictions when it's the student paying.. it seems a bit of an overreach.   There are lots of ways we could be addressing things, but we aren't." I see two advantages to not paying student loan debt off more quickly: For #1, however, there are plenty of other ways to build credit and I don't see this as being worth the downsides of not paying off the debt more quickly. In fact, in the United States student loan debt cannot be written off if you go bankrupt. This is important to know and understand. I would generally advise you to pay down your student loans as quickly as you can reasonably do so. That's unlikely to be a good move.  After the penalties, you would have roughly $40k-$45k to apply to your debt.  But then what?  You'd still have $100k of debt, with no change in your income situation.  You would be sacrificing half of your retirement fund to reduce your debt by only a third. Two points from your question are notable.  First, you say your current job makes you eligible for loan forgiveness.  Second, you say you love what you do.  Given that, it sounds like it's likely you'll remain in your current job long enough to have your loan forgiven.  I would see this as a major reason to stick it out until that time.  It won't be painful from a work perspective, since you like the work (in contrast to someone who grinds through a job they dislike just to have their loan forgiven), but only from a budget perspective.  Also, since your income is less than $75k, you may be able to deduct the interest on a student loan payment on your taxes (see Publication 970), softening the blow somewhat. According to your numbers, your loan payment is a bit over 10% of your income.  That is not pleasant, but it doesn't seem out of the question that you could make it work through judicious budgeting.  It would depend on other aspects of your lifestyle and expenses (which you don't mention in the question, and which might go in a separate question if you start wondering how to do that budgeting). "As others have stated, credit (signature required) is processed through their respective networks (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express). A ""debit"" card tied to your checking account, still go through the same credit network even though the funds are guaranteed from your checking rather than a free loan 30-60 days which has the potential to be unpaid. This type of debit card purchase may be eligible for a lower processing rate for less risk. Debit cards can also be processed through the debit network (PIN required, no signature). This is typically a straight fee such as $0.35.  Fees vary, but let me give you a simple comparison: Say you are at the supermarket and buy $50 worth of groceries with a debit card with Visa logo. You are asked ""credit"" or ""debit"": At my supermarket, this is why I am given the option to enter my PIN first. If I want to pay by credit, I have to tap Cancel to process via credit signature." I was in a similar (but not quite as bad situation) a couple years ago, and I had a stroke of luck that helped me, but your friend might be able to force a similar situation. My parents refused to take out the huge parent loan (understandably so), but my dad made enough money that I wasn't eligible for much aid.  My stroke of luck came when they got divorced; I could refile my FAFSA with only one parent (using my mom with very little income), my aid shot through the roof and nearly covered my undergrad (this happened in California, I don't know if this works in other states). My advice for your friend would be to take the 6 units/part time job option, but do what she can to earn enough to pay her own rent/food/other bills.  I think the requirement for filing as an independent is that you supply >50% of your own income.  It won't kick in right away, but for next school year this would end up getting her a lot more money from the state/federal governments.  For me it was enough to cover my school, food, rent, gas, car payment, and still have a little left over. (I don't know if this is still possible, and I know it doesn't work for graduate school, or if it applies to every state.  It might be an option worth pursuing though) I would strongly suggest you select an answer: all the above two cover everything I can possibly recommend, but perhaps my perspective as a person who was exactly in your shoes a year ago might appeal to you more. My first bank was Chase, and they usually give out a free checking account to students that come with leaves of 100 checks. Unfortunately, I was 24 at that time, and the max possible age to qualify was 23 or 21. Paying $25 for any number of checks was a big deal for me as I had no job, and transportation and rent was costing me $1k/month anyways. I came here and asked questions: lots of them. MrChrister, God bless his soul, recommended credit unions to me. I never knew they existed. A year later, I am a proud member of 3 CUs: I recommend Alliant, DCU and SchoolsFirst: I am their member and very proud of it! You should look into the Income Contingent Repayment and Income Sensitive Repayment plans to see which one you may qualify for.  Another possibility would be to start taking courses part time at another college so that you can qualify for a deferment. I'm not sure that you can qualify for a deferment if you are currently in default.  I've found that negotiating did not work in my case, as the collectors' BATNA would result in them getting more money if they refused to negotiate. I also found that every time the student loans went into default, 30% was added to the balance in fees. "You have 1998-2011 income-contingent student loans, where the interest rate is the lower of (1% + base rate) or RPI (retail price inflation). For the next few years the it's likely to be (1% + base rate) as interest rates stay low and inflation shoots up. These loans only need to be repaid in proportion to your salary, and if they aren't repaid for long enough (e.g. the holder takes a career break for children) they are written off. So all-in-all, they are pretty good debt to have: low interest rate, and you might not have to repay them ever. It's likely that your mortgage will have a significantly higher rate than the student loan, so you'd be better off reducing your mortgage. Also, the higher deposit might mean you can get a lower interest rate on the whole mortgage because the lender will see you as a lower risk, so the return from ""investing"" it in your mortgage would be even greater than the raw interest rate. Having the student loan outstanding might make some difference to the ""affordability"" check for your mortgage payments, but lenders will be very familiar with how they work. Reducing your mortgage payments with the higher deposit should easily counterbalance that. Your own suggestion is to invest the £30K in a ""reasonably safe portfolio"" making 5%. There'll inevitably be some risk in that - 5% is a relatively high return in today's climate - but if you're willing to take that risk, you can investigate the effect on your mortgage to see if it's worth it or not."