Why student loans and all money is ‘hevel’

There’s a row gathering over student loans, and I can’t help but feel somewhat personally culpable.

Back in 2013 as a new graduate – soon after tuition fees had been raised from £3,000 to £9,000 per year – I did a three-month job giving presentations about student finance in sixth forms and colleges.

I can still remember the patter. In each presentation, after briefly sharing what a great time I myself had at university (with photos!) I cheerfully explained the costs and terms of the new “Plan 2” student loans. “It’s really not that bad,” was the overall gist of it: graduates would be charged interest rate of the Retail Price Index (then about 3%), plus an additional 1, 2 or 3% (based on earnings). Once they’d graduated, their repayments would be set at 9% of all their earnings over a given threshold (then £21,000 per year). “So, if you leave uni and get a good graduate job paying £25k per year,” I would say – although it sounded like a fancifully princely sum to me at the time – “that would work out at about £30 a month. Which, when you think about it, is about what you’d pay for a gym membership or mobile phone contract.” And after 30 years, the loan would be wiped.

Driving thousands of miles around the fine county of Kent in a small white van certainly did wonders for my bay-parking skills. But what it did for the financial prospects of my teenage audiences is now coming under greater scrutiny.

Fast-forward to 2026, and eye-wateringly high rates of inflation in recent years have led to a situation where graduates are paying hundreds of pounds off their loans each month and still seeing their overall debt going up, not down. Moreover, the threshold above which students make those payments has risen in line with average earnings each year, and is expected will rise to £29,385 next month. But Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in her most recent budget that, after that, they will be frozen until 2030 (much like those sticky tax brackets). Last month Money Saving Expert Martin Lewis – the people’s champion – called this change not moral: “unilaterally changing the terms” on a loan after it has been taken out “would not be allowed for any commercial lender” and should not be allowed for the government either. Following Lewis’ intervention, and support from a number of MPs, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister announced that the government is “looking at ways to make it fairer”. What that is remains to be seen.

The Bible would agree with Lewis on the importance of keeping faith with regards to an agreement: the blameless man is one who “keeps an oath even when it hurts, and does not change their mind” (Ps.15v4). There’s certainly a place for urging the government to uphold its commitments.

But at the same time, perhaps there’s a freeing perspective to be heard from the teacher of Ecclesiastes. Namely: money, like a great many things under the sun, is hevel – the Hebrew word sometimes translated as “meaningless” or “vanity,” but more has the sense of “vapour”. You can’t keep hold of it or rely on it. “Whoever loves money never has enough; whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. This too is meaningless. As goods increase, so do those who consume them,” – the Student Loans Company being a case in point (Eccl.5v10-11). The more you earn, the more you pay.

Like Martin Lewis, I certainly hope our government will keep its word on student finance terms. But more fool me if I expect them to – just like I’m a fool if I’m counting on my flat going up in value or my pension being worth more than a tin of beans by the time I retire. Why? Because money is hevel. Who knows what will happen tomorrow?

Instead, says the teacher, “This is what I have observed to be good: that it is appropriate for a person to eat, to drink and to find satisfaction in their toilsome labour under the sun during the few days of life God has given them.” So spend gladly, give generously – and if you really want to reduce your monthly student loan repayments, why not drastically cut your hours to enrol part time at theological college? It’s worked a treat for me.