EU students vanish from UK with £893million in loans

By MATT DAVIS and LYDIA VELJANOVSKI Published: 01:18, 14 June 2026 | Updated: 01:26, 14 June 2026 Thousands of students from European countries who took out loans worth £893 million to fund degrees in UK universities have vanished without repaying a penny. Latest figures from the Government-owned Student Loans Company (SLC) show that it is currently trying to track down the whereabouts of about 42,000 former undergraduates. Officials have been forced to establish links with authorities across the EU in an effort to find the missing students and compel them to repay their debts. The SLC has long maintained that moving abroad is not a way of escaping the student loan repayments.  But while officials in the UK can readily access tax records to track down borrowers, tracing graduates overseas is far more difficult. In total, the SLC has revealed it is trying to find 121,000 former students with unpaid loan balances worth £3.4 billion. Of these, almost 15,000 are believed to have moved to Australia, 7,600 to the United States and around 5,500 each to Spain and Ireland.  There are also almost 5,300 in the UAE, 1,500 in China, 3,500 in Bulgaria and 3,500 in Romania. The Government-owned Student Loans Company (SLC) is currently trying to track down 42,000 European students who took out loans worth £893million The loans are used to help cover tuition fees and living costs, and become repayable after leaving the university. But SLC chiefs added that not all of these former students are liable to repay their loans. Some may be out of work, in between jobs, claiming benefits or not earning enough to meet the minimum repayment threshold. Callum McGoldrick, investigations campaign manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'Taxpayers will be furious to see billions in student loan debt disappearing overseas while they foot the bill.  'Ministers must get serious about enforcement, or hardworking taxpayers will keep paying the price.' Christopher McGovern, chairman of the Campaign For Real Education, said: 'Taxpayers are being robbed. 'Non-UK students should be excluded from loans altogether and UK students should be required to provide a guarantor of repayment, such as a parent.' An SLC spokesman said last night: 'The vast majority of customers comply with the terms and conditions of their loan and repay through the correct channel.  'In 2024 to 2025, more than 90 per cent of customers had a verified residency and employment status. 'All are required to comply with the terms and conditions of their loans and are made aware of their responsibilities, including the requirement to tell us if they plan to live overseas for three months or more and to provide income details so that the correct repayment arrangements can be put in place.' The comments below have not been moderated. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. By posting your comment you agree to our house rules. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual. Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline? Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook. You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.