IIT Delhi urges for students' income-contingent loans

According to reports, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Delhi has urged the government to emulate Australia and extend income-contingent loans to students to cover tuition fees and seek repayment only after they have found a job. The Education Secretary in the Ministry of Human Resource Development, R. Subrahmanyam has confirmed the news and said that the HRD ministry is currently looking into the matter.

IIT Delhi has suggested that the HRD Ministry should consider setting up an agency similar to the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) “for directly funding students with full or partial tuition fee based on their needs and put in a process to recover as additional tax/cess once he/she gets employed”, according to a report in The Indian Express. HEFA is an agency that extends ten-year loans to government educational institutions for infrastructure development. The proposal says, “It is important for IITs that our graduates do not always choose high-paying jobs but follow their passion in other fields, including research and public service. Very high loan as a burden eliminates career choices as can be seen even today from the IIM type loan based education."