Tertiary students may obtain student loans without guarantors – Bawumia promises

The governing New Patriotic Party, in its quest to ensure affordable education, has announced that all tertiary students will have the opportunity to obtain student loans without the requirement of a guarantor.

The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, gave the news at the launch of the NPP manifesto at the University of Cape Coast.

“All tertiary students (except teacher and nurse trainees receiving allowances) will get the option to obtain a student loan without the requirement of a guarantor.

“Once, he or she has a national ID/Ghana card, the loan will be granted, and defer repayment to after National Service plus an additional one year grace period,” he stated.

According to the Vice President, this has become necessary because of the challenges students usually encounter during the loan process.

“If you look at Ghana, our gross tertiary is less than 17%. So if we are to catch up and build the human capital which will help us transform the economy, then we have to get more enrollment into the tertiary sectors.

“One of the problems for students in getting enrollment and access is affordability. Whether it is enrollment into the public or private universities, the ability to get the money is also a high bottleneck.

“When these senior high students graduate many of them will look to go for tertiary education and we have to facilitate their ability to do so,” he added.