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28 November 2005
Students face being blacklisted for future credit if they don't pay back their loans on time, under proposals from the Student Loans Company (SLC).
The company wants to see rules which block student debtors being passed to credit referencing agencies be changed, meaning that mortgages, loans and credit cards could be refused to students until they have settled their bad credit.
With almost 60,000 students believed to be in arrears, and bad debts coming to around £160 million, the SLC is acknowledging that student loans aren't seen as a special case, different from any other sort of debt, any longer.
SLC chief executive Ralph Seymour-Jackson told the Times: "There has been a change in attitude and a recognition that this [data sharing] will improve the way we manage the debts of the exchequer.
"There is also the issue of responsible lending where banks need to have a full picture of the debts a borrower has in order to make the right lending decisions. We should play our part in this."
Last year £2.78 billion was lent to higher education students by the SLC.
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