Nearly one in three (former) students with a study debt paid off extra in 2023, on average over three thousand euros per person. This is partly due to rising interest rates, DUO thinks.
Especially at the end of the year, DUO suddenly received a lot of extra money, the service announced on Thursday. It is probably a response to the unexpected news for many students that interest rates on student loans would start to rise. For years, they could take out loans for free, but in October the Financieele Dagblad calculated that the interest rate would rise from 0.46 to 2.5 percent from the beginning of 2024.
Over all of 2023, nearly 229 thousand DUO debtors paid back some 708 million euros more than they had to. In previous years, this was around 400 to 480 million. Also, 47 thousand (former) students repaid their entire debt with additional repayments, compared to 36 thousand earlier.
Not only rising interest rates, but also new mortgage rules make former students want to hurry up with repayments. Since January, banks have been looking at the actual, current debt that former students have. Previously, they weighed the original loan amount in an application. So those who pay off extra can now borrow more money for a house. (HOP, OL)
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