A quarter of uni debts won't be repaid

Almost a quarter of uni student loans are not expected to ever be repaid, a new report says. Source: AAP

ALMOST a quarter of university student loans owed to the government is not expected to ever be repaid, a new report says.

The Grattan Institute's annual Mapping Australian Higher Education report finds that students and former students have accumulated HECS-HELP debts of $26.3 billion.

This is about an extra $10 billion owing, in real terms, than in 2007.

The interest bill on the income-contingent loan scheme, formerly known as HECS, is nearly $600 million a year, the institute estimates.

And it says HELP debt not expected to be repaid rose to $6.2 billion in 2012.

The report says the bad debt is mainly due to HELP debtors dying or moving overseas before they finish repayments.

The Grattan Institute also found the new demand-driven funding system for undergraduates seemed to be addressing skill shortages.

It said enrolment numbers in health and engineering courses in particular had grown more quickly than in other areas - good news for the persistent skills shortages in these professions.

Labor parliamentary secretary Mark Dreyfus said Tertiary Education Minister Chris Evans had asked the department to look at ways of getting the money back from graduates who were overseas.

Mr Dreyfus said Australians could be proud of the HELP system.

"It makes higher education available to all students and that's good for the Australian economy as well as being good for the community," he told Sky News.

Liberal MP Steve Ciobo said university students using the public education system had a responsibility to repay the taxpayer assistance that had been afforded to them.

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