Rupert Lowe MP
Yet another scandal uncovered, this time on student loans. My view is that we are saddling youngsters with such extreme debt, then charging ludicrous interest on those loans. It is morally repugnant to load young men and women with yet another tax. And it is a tax...
But let’s explore who is actually taking those loans (which very often don’t get paid back.)
Figures all provided to me by the Department for Education.
The figures paid to UK nationals over the last five years has stayed steady. 16 billion a year.
Non-UK nationals?
2.4 billion in 20/21, rising to 3.8 billion in 24/25.
Unknown nationality? 341 million in 20/21, to 706 million in 24/25. How can it be unknown? How can we hand out thousands and thousands of pounds when we don’t even know a person’s nationality? But it gets worse…
I asked for a nationality breakdown of loans written off.
Obviously, they did not have the information...
However, they did provide me with a breakdown of loan borrowing by nationality. Some of the figures are quite striking, particularly the Romanians.
Romania.
25,046 in 19/20. 78,325 in 23/24. How on earth is that justifiable?! Why are we funding tens of thousands of Romanians to go to university?
78 thousand Romanians receiving financial support, in ONE YEAR.
How much of this is being paid back? Written off? Meaning that British students are having to pay through the nose for their interest.
It’s a fraud. Quite obviously a scam. Thousands and thousands take the money, then sod off. Never paying it back, leaving us to clear up the mess.
We should restrict student loan financing to British boys and girls. Ban Romanians from applying, urgently.
Save billions by restricting it to Brits, then we can start to scrap the interest on student loans and give young British men and women the freedom they need to build a life.
