Grace period urged over student loans
The government should allow university students to defer loan payments for a year, the youth faction of the Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong said yesterday.
All tertiary students who held loans through the Student Financial Assistance Agency should be allowed a grace period during the financial meltdown, said Young DAB chairman Holden Chow Ho-ding.
He said graduates faced a lot of pressure to make loan repayments when many were at risk of unemployment or salary cuts.
Students can apply to defer payments individually, but Mr Chow called for a general deferral because he expected a surge in applications.
During the Sars outbreak in 2003, more than 4,000 deferral applications were filed, compared with about 2,700 in 2007-08, he said.
Statistics show that 53,119 students have been offered loans averaging HK$43,000 under the non-means-tested loan scheme for post-secondary students in the current academic year.
Applicants are means-tested under the Tertiary Student Finance Scheme but it provides loans with a lower interest rate: 2.5 per cent instead of the 4.13 per cent offered under the non-means-tested scheme.
Education sector lawmaker Cheung Man-kwong said the government should review the means test for loans as the cost of computers and travel was not considered when it drafted the loan schemes.
Relaxing the means test would enable more students to pay the lower interest rate, thereby relieving some of their burden, he added.
