ISLAMABAD: The Higher Education Commission’s (HEC) Student Loan Scheme which might help students in getting quality education and prevent an ongoing ‘brain drain’ still needs a go-ahead from the finance ministry. According to the proposed loan scheme, students will be able to get loans and financial aid to complete their higher education. Under the programme, students will also be able to apply to recognised foreign universities. The HEC has been working for two years to draft an appropriate proposal which will help the students in the country on a wider scale. An assessment of the applicant and his family’s economic resources will be carried out before providing loan. The student loan facility may be offered initially to students in public sector universities and the facility will then be extended to students in private sector universities.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 15th, 2012.
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It is very sad that HEC has come up now about education loan after two years and itsc is still waiting for approval. Such a loan has been available to students for almost 15 years or ymore in Malaysia and I drew attention to it in a letter titled " Why not education loans" published in Dawn,18 Feb 2001 giving salient features of this scheme when I was working in the Far East.
Make everyone eligible to the loan, don't restrict it to public universities only and exclude foreign universities.
Fund it by cutting the funding to public universities. Let them compete with private ones on merit rather than by the inability of students to pay higher.