There are certain numbers you expect to see on your payslip: tax; national insurance; hopefully a pension contribution. Recently, I noticed another. It’s larger than I expected, persistent and quietly compounding: my student loan repayment. I’ve seen it before, of course, but studying it to write this column was a jolt.

Not because I didn’t know it existed, but because of what it represents: a system that increasingly feels less like a graduate contribution and more like a long-term penalty for succeeding. After I retrained as a teacher six years ago, my starting salary was so paltry that I once barely noticed it. But it has increased significantly since, and I am now doing reasonably well.

Over the weekend, ahead of this week’s opening up of the 2026 online loan application system, a fresh wave of headlines highlighted the issue. Graduates leave........

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