SEVERAL students entering colleges and universities in September and others continuing their studies, who failed to meet the April 30 deadline for students’ loan, will have to find other sources of financing their studies in the new school year.

An undetermined number of students have turned up at the Students’ Loan Bureau after the application date and have request extensions, but the bureau said there would be no extension of the April 30 deadline, according to public education officer, Natalie Gollab. She would not say how many persons were turned away.

The Students’ Loan Bureau said yesterday that despite an “aggressive media campaign” over the last four months, urging students to apply for their loans early, several still turned up after the deadline.

A total of 6,000 applications were received over the four months, in what the bureau described as the “most challenging application period”.

“We put out a lot of ads asking students to come in early (with their applications), we spoke to them at schools and expositions, but most of the applicants turned up in the last two weeks before the deadline,” Gollab told the Observer.

Gollab said many students held their applications, while trying to identify alternative options to finance their education. To discourage this, the bureau has been advising students to apply first then decide afterwards. “We tell them if you’re not sure, apply and apply early.”

She said that with the rush of applications staff members of the bureau have been working “well into midnight for over a week”.

Previously the bureau had two application dates, one for new applicants and another for repeat applicants. That was changed this year to a single application date to allow students to apply before the busy exam period.

The bureau said it will soon be conducting guarantor interviews for applicants whose loans have been approved. The deadline for this process is August 30.