INTEREST paid on student loan debt is set to almost double in the next five years following a rate hike.

Graduates are set to rack up £8.6 billion in student loan debt interest in 2024, an increase of £4.2bn, according to new analysis of official government projections by Labour.

Almost all the rise in accrued interest will come from post-2012 undergraduate loans, figures published by the Department for Education on student loan repayments show.

The total interest added to the post-2012 debts is set to more than double from £3.5bn to £7.6bn over the next five years.

The interest rate charged on loans for undergraduates who began studies after September 2012 is currently 6.3 per cent — the Retail Price Index (RPI) plus 3 per cent.

Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner said: “Under the Tories and their broken student loan system, thousands of students are being burdened with vast levels of debt that they will never be able to repay.

“ … Labour will scrap tuition fees and restore maintenance grants for disadvantaged students so that access to education is a right for all.”