.png)
00:00
00:00
00:00
Monica Brown, Executive Director of the SLB, Professor Dale Webber, Principal of the UWI and Dr. Delroy Cheveres, Senior Lecturer at the UWI
Despite large numbers of tertiary students being deregistered each year because of inability to pay tuition fees, many are reportedly shunning the Students' Loan Bureau (SLB) as a source of financing.
The issue was discussed during Wednesday's sitting of Parliament's Public Administration and Appropriations Committee (PAAC).
Almost 600 students did not complete the enrollment process at the University of Technology (UTech) in the last academic year, while at the University of the West Indies (UWI) about 300 were deregistered.
This despite the SLB reporting that it approves more than 90 per cent of the loan applications it receives, including late applications.
Monica Brown, Executive Director of the SLB, said students are averse to the idea of debt.
"There are students who have not aplied to the Students' Loan Bureau. So in the case of UWI, of the 19,000 students, we got applications from 4,457 of them for 2018-19. So there are a number of students who are not interested in getting a loan to pay their tuition although they have no other financial arrangement to pay their fees...because it would appear they would not want the responsibility of paying back debt," she asserted.
Professor Dale Webber, Principal of the UWI, said he has also noticed the trend.
"Chairman, our numbers tell us we have 22.5 per cent of University of the West Indies students applying for the students' loan in total...and 98 per cent of them are successful by what we've heard from the Students' Loan Bureau. But less than a quarter (of students entering the university) apply. They are loan averse in terms of investing in their own education," he said, while responding to PAAC Chairman Dr. Wykeham McNeill.
Dr. Delroy Cheveres, Senior Lecturer at the University of the West Indies, Mona, believes inflexibility on the part of the SLB is among the reasons tertiary students are shunning the agency despite their inability to pay tuition fees.
Dr. Cheveres is of the view that the SLB's funding policy has made it difficult for many students to secure loans.
He said students are turning to commercial banks due to more flexible lending terms.
"For me, I think because Students' Loan Bureau was really designed for this purpose, it's for Students' Loan Bureau to have more faster terms and conditions, where the loan application and repayment is concerned..and I would also think that the pool of funds available by Students' Loan Bureau should be boosted up," he suggested.
Dr. Cheveres said many commercial banks are facing challenges with student loans due to regulations.
He and a group of students at the University of the West Indies recently conducted research to ascertain whether students can afford the funding options offered by commercial banks in Jamaica.
Of the three universities included in the study, it was found that just students belonging to one of the institutions could afford the loans because that institution was heavily subsidised by the government. However, students from the other two universities had challenges seeking these loans.
All feeds
