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Written question asked by Neil O'Brien (Conservative) on Wednesday, 17 June 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 22 June 2026 (named day). It was answered by Josh MacAlister (Labour) on Tuesday, 28 July 2026 on behalf of the Department for Education.

Students: Loans

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many people have received a student loan from the Student Loans Company since 2005, broken down by nationality and by the academic year in which they first received a loan.

Answer

The data for the 2020/21 to 2024/25 academic years has previously been published in the attached file.

The department and the Student Loans Company (SLC) have recently strengthened the quality and consistency of their data and now hold robust information on current borrowers’ UK national status and nationality. However, due to GDPR requirements, records are not retained indefinitely. Borrowers whose loans were fully repaid or written off more than six years ago are removed from SLC systems.

As a result, the department does not hold a complete dataset with robust and consistent nationality information over this 20-year time-period. Figures on the number of borrowers by academic year and nationality across the full time series will therefore not fully reflect historical trends in nationality of borrowers.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
10704
Session
2026-27
Attachment
Student loans received by non-UK nationals
Related items
Department for Education: Written Questions
Tuesday, 28 July 2026
Written questions
House of Commons
Subjects
Loans Students
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk