What average time is taken by (a) women and (b) men to repay outstanding student loans.

The time taken to repay a loanvaries depending on the type of loan taken. For mortgage-style loans (those startingtheir course before 1998-99), borrowers who have finished paying off their loanstake an average time to repay of (a) 5.21 years for women and (b) 5.44 years formen.
As an example of repayment timeson the newer income contingent loans (those starting their course in 1998-99 orlater) for 2005 graduates commencing repayment in 2006, the forecast average lengthof time to repay a student loan for (a) women, is approximately 14.9 years and (b)men, is approximately 10.6 years.
The times taken for each typeof loan are not comparable. Those provided for mortgage-style loans are based onthe time from entering repayment to paying off the loan. These loans are repaidover a fixed period of five or seven years.
The forecasts for income-contingentloans estimate the average time taken from the 1 April after graduating or leavinghigher education to fully repaying the loan.