The situation of Hong Kong college students defaulting on student loans is still serious. According to the data of the Hong Kong Student Aid Office, among the student aid and loan plans of the five junior colleges under its jurisdiction, 16157 cases of delinquency were recorded this academic year (as of January 31), an increase of nearly 500 over the 2012/13 academic year, involving an amount of up to 240 million yuan (Hong Kong dollars, the same below), and the proportion of delinquency cases in the Hong Kong student loan repayment account was 10%. In order to recover the arrears of student loans, 1520 cases were submitted to the Ministry of Justice this academic year, and 718 cases were reported to the Small Loan Court to recover the arrears.According to the document submitted by the Hong Kong Education Bureau to the Finance Committee of the Legislative Council, the Education Subsidy Office has established five subsidy and loan schemes for junior college students, covering degree courses funded by the Hong Kong government, self funded institutions and approved continuing education courses. According to data, as of January 31 of this year in the 2013/14 academic year, the Department had recorded 16157 cases of arrears, mainly from the "extended interest free loan review plan", accounting for 8015 cases, involving more than 100 million yuan. The data also indicate that the plan has granted loans of more than 310000 yuan at most.3648 applications for deferred repaymentThe Australian Audit Office noted that quarterly instalments of two or more consecutive instalments and six or more monthly instalments would be considered delinquent. However, due to various reasons, including economic difficulties or serious illness, repayment can be delayed. By the end of January, the Australian Development Agency had received 3648 applications for deferred repayment, including 1877 applications for deferred repayment due to financial difficulties and 1771 applications for continuing full-time courses.On the other hand, the Asset Management Office of the College has strengthened its website to publicize the consequences of smart financing and default repayment, distributed various relevant publicity materials to lenders, encouraged students to be cautious in financing, and called on lenders to seek help from the Asset Management Office of the College when repayment is difficult. After taking the above measures, the total ratio of default repayment cases to the number of loan repayment accounts decreased from 12.45% in 2009/10 academic year to 9.84% in 2013/14 academic year (as of the end of January). The number of cases in arrears also decreased slightly from 17374 in the 2009/100 academic year.In the academic year 2013/14, the expected expenditure of the Student Loan Office on recovering the student loans in arrears was 24.3 million yuan, mainly the salary expenditure of related employees. According to the data, there were 1520 cases transferred to the Ministry of Justice due to default in repayment in this academic year, and 2965 cases in the 2012/13 academic year. As of the end of January, 718 cases had been reported to the small loan court to recover the arrears. Through the above measures, the arrears of 79 million yuan have been temporarily recovered this academic year.Loan approval should be more strictZhang Peiping, chairman of the Hong Kong Education Policy Concern Institute, commented that many college students believe that they can repay their debts after graduation. They spent a lot of money on eating, drinking, playing and traveling during school. They also use credit cards to pay from time to time, which is a serious lack of financial planning. He said that the Hong Kong government's resource management should be used to help students who really need help. The Student Resources Department should be more strict in approving loan applications, such as spot checking whether students have ever borrowed from banks to assess their actual borrowing needs and repayment ability.
