Romanians are being explicitly mentioned in a new scandal rocking Britain’s student loan system, after a British MP publicly accused “foreigners, especially Romanians” of taking government money for studies with the intention of never paying it back.
The statements came as British authorities admitted they had lost contact with hundreds of thousands of former students who owe the state billions of pounds. The topic quickly reignited an explosive debate about immigration, accountability and the costs borne by British taxpayers.
Direct Political Accusations: “Billions Missing. Who’s Answering?”
According to the British publication Daily Mail, MP Rupert Lowe has called for an official investigation into possible fraud in the student loan system.
“I think there is an organized mechanism through which foreigners, especially from Romania, take loans with the intention of never repaying them. Billions and billions of pounds have disappeared. Who is responsible? Where is the investigation?”, he said.
Lowe called on the government to consider restricting access to student loans to British citizens only and spoke of “gross incompetence” or even “fraud on an industrial scale” if the suspicions are confirmed.
What the official data of the British state shows
The Student Loans Company (SLC) has admitted it does not have up-to-date information on the financial or employment situation of 376,410 former students. They are part of a total of around 5.7 million people with active student loans in the UK, meaning almost one in 15 borrowers, or 6.64%, have unverified income.
The value of loans for which income cannot be confirmed stands at £12.8bn, representing around 5.7% of all student loans on record. At the end of December, the total value of all student loans to be repaid in the UK was £226 billion.
SLC position: “Not all are lost”
The Student Loans Company rejects the notion that all beneficiaries with unverified income are “missing” or that there is automatically fraud. The institution’s representatives claim that some former students are not yet required to repay the loans because they have not reached the minimum income threshold.
At the same time, SLC admitted that some of the beneficiaries are outside Great Britain. Under the rules, they are required to inform the institution if they intend to be out of the country for more than three months, meaning some may be legally in this transition period.
The example of New Zealand: much tougher penalties
Education policy expert Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, warns that the figures indicate a “major leak” in Britain’s loan repayment system.
He said British authorities should look at the New Zealand model, where severe penalties are imposed for late or non-payment of student loans, as a way of discouraging graduates from leaving the country without paying off their debts.
Tense political context: lower fees for EU students?
The scandal comes at a sensitive political moment. There have been reports in Britain that Prime Minister Keir Starmer could consider cutting tuition fees for students from the European Union as part of a “youth mobility” deal.
But British universities have warned that such a measure could generate a loss of around 580 million pounds. EU students currently pay international fees of between £11,400 and £32,000 per year, compared to the domestic fee of £9,535 for UK students.
At the same time, British public opinion is increasingly dissatisfied with the debt burden. A YouGov poll shows that 44% of Britons think the government should partially or fully erase student debt. 76% say interest rates of around 6% are too high and 68% consider the £9,000 annual fees for UK students to be excessive.
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