Student debt soaring, figures show
Updated on 22 June 2010
Student debt is soaring as undergraduates take out Government loans to help pay for their university education, official figures showed.
The Student Loans Company (SLC) lent £5.05 billion in 2009/10, up from £4.2 billion the year before.
Of this, £2.1 billion was taken out in loans by students in England to pay their tuition fees.
The statistics, published by the SLC, are for English home students studying in the UK, and EU students studying in England.
Overall, students and graduates owe £30.5 billion in outstanding loans, including those not yet due for repayment. This is a 2.3% increase on 2008/09 when the total amount outstanding was £29.7 billion.
The statistics also show that more students are borrowing money - there were 2.9 million borrowers at the start of the 2009/10 financial year. That figure now stands at 3.2 million.
The figures come as former BP boss Lord Browne continues his independent review of student funding, which could pave the way for higher fees. It is due to report in the autumn. Tuition fees currently stand at a maximum of £3,225 per year.
University vice-chancellors previously called for a higher cap, while in its written submission to the Browne review the Russell Group, which represents 20 leading research-intensive institutions including Oxford and Cambridge, called for the tuition fee cap to be lifted incrementally, with institutions able to charge different amounts for different courses.
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