British student loans - okay not to repay?

Hi all

If you ask most Brits who still live in the UK, they see the student loan system as mostly justifiable, however the more I have learned about it the more I genuinely think it is one of the most horrendously thought-out ideas in the modern history of the UK. Nowhere else in Europe comes close to replicating it. What I really want to get to the heart of is this - is it so bad that it makes it moral not to repay?

Most Brits still in the UK would say you have signed a legal contract therefore case closed but I think this is a peculiarly legalistic and very British crabs-in-bucket attitude. Overall many Brits also think it's something of a "betrayal" to live abroad anyway, this sentiment becoming more frequent by the day. The worst bit is it often comes from those who went to uni for free! I think most people from other European countries would absolutely not countenance this type of system as it seems insane from basically any angle you look at it but in the UK it just seems to be something to complain mildly about.

The way it is set up makes me feel like the social contract to repay is completely broken, but other times I do feel a bit conflicted. I would have no problem repaying if the price was something remotely sensible but it wa something I signed up for at 17 after having been misled about its purported benefits by family and school - can we really be screwing over 17 year olds and then saying it's all okay as they ticked a box when they weren't even old enough to drink yet?

My reasons can overall be summed up as a tax on ambition (at an unreasonable RPI+3%) and especially as a malignant way to try and discourage British talent from going abroad although there is so much more to complain about. The latter is important because I have heard many very negative policy suggestions from Brits in the UK about how we should essentially try and trap people in the country by weaponising student loans rather than actually making it somewhere they want to live (which for many of us it obviously isn't...) The implication of the system supports this though, because you are expected to pay through the nose for most of your life for the "privilege" of a couple of years at uni.

Overall though most Brits will pay tens of thousands or even £100k+, whereas students from almost any other country pay far closer to £0 for their education. And who knows, the UK Government could perfectly legally extend or even remove the repayment timeline retrospectively. This puts Brits generally, but especially those working abroad who try to play by the rules, at a massive disadvantage.

What do you guys think? Does this amount to enough to justify non-repayments?