2024: Week 12 - Graduate Student Loan Repayments

Challenge by: Jenny Martin

Prep Air employees had positive feedback about the Staff Income Tax challenge a couple of weeks ago, so they have decided to carry out a similar exercise for staff on the Graduate scheme. 

In England (where Prep Air is based), graduates will begin to repay their Student Loans the April after they graduate. This will be the first time many graduates will see the student loan deduction on their pay slip, so Prep Air wants them to know what to expect. The amount they repay is based off their salary rather than the size of the loan. 

More info on gov.uk

The graduates at Prep Air are all on Plan 2 student loans, so they pay 9% on anything they earn over the threshold of £27,295.

In contrast to when repayments begin, interest on the loan starts accumulating from the day the first payment is made. Interest is applied monthly. We're going to simplify the problem a little and assume that the full loan amount is paid to the student once a year (even though in reality this occurs once a term). We'll also use the current interest rate of 7.7% for all years, even though this changes every year.

Prep Air would like to help the graduates understand the size of their loan at the present moment as well as understanding their repayments. The Prep Flow they will create as a template will have the average value for the maintenance loan and tuition fees, since the graduates will have the skills to be able to edit these values themselves. 

Inputs

  1. Undergraduate Loans 

  2. Repayment details 

Requirements

  • Input the data
  • In the Undergraduate Loans table, create a row for every year of the course 
    • This will represent the payment date for each year (it should fall on 1st September)
  • Calculate the number of months between the payment date and April 2024
  • Join with the Repayment details table
  • Calculate the Amount Borrowed + the Interest applied
    • Compound interest will be useful here 
  • Total these values together so only 1 row remains and graduates can clearly see the total amount they borrowed and where it stands now that interest has been applied
  • Introduce a Salary parameter with values of potential graduate salaries:
    • £30,000
    • £35,000
    • £40,000
  • Workout what their monthly repayment will be, based on the above information
  • Also work out how much interest will be applied in the following month, after the repayment is made 
  • Output the data

Output

Example output when graduate salary is £35k:
  • 4 fields
    • Monthly Repayment
    • Total Borrowed
    • Total Borrowed +Interest
    • Interest to be added next month
  • 1 row
After you finish the challenge make sure to fill in the participation tracker, then share your solution on Twitter using #PreppinData and tagging @Datajedininja, @JennyMartinDS14 & @TomProwse1

You can also post your solution on the Tableau Forum where we have a Preppin' Data community page. Post your solutions and ask questions if you need any help! 

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