KINGSTON, Jamaica – Approximately 30 per cent of students currently enrolled at tertiary institutions across the island are being supported through loans from the Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB) executive director, Monica Brown said Monday.

According to Brown the number of applications to the Bureau ballooned from approximately 6,000 in 2007 to a high of 15,000 applications in 2013.

She attributes the almost three-fold increase in applicants over the six-year period to, among other things, an annual increases in tuition fees, “which have been way above the average inflation rate”.

Brown added however that there is a substantial increase in the number of people aspiring to attend a tertiary institution, thus driving up the demand for student loans.

“Major factor impacting [loan] demand, is the significant growth in the number of students enrolled in tertiary institutions,” Brown told reporters and editors at the Observer’s Monday exchange held at the newspaper’s Beechwood Avenue headquarters in Kingston.

Meanwhile, Brown said that based on SLB data the top five disciplines in loan demand are: Business and Social sciences, accounting for 26 per cent of applications received; Education, accounting for 17 per cent; Sciences, which account for 15 per cent of applications; Nursing, at nine per cent; and Medicine which accounts for five per cent of applications received by the Bureau.

-Anika Richards