The key facts

  • State Duma committee member Oleg Smolin linked the decline in education loan issuance to restricted access to higher education
  • Tuition-based places at universities shrank by 97,000 this year
  • Education loans are issued at 3% annual interest; earlier it was proposed to compensate straight-A graduates for 25% of the principal debt

Deputy explains the decline in demand for education loans

Russians have been taking out education loans less often, and Oleg Smolin, a member of the State Duma Committee on Science and Higher Education and an academician of the Russian Academy of Education, linked this not to the loan terms but to the overall trend of restricting access to higher education. In a conversation with NSN, he recalled that the number of tuition-based (paid) places at universities shrank by 97,000 this year, and the emphasis is shifting toward blue-collar and vocational specialties. According to him, this matches the Labor Ministry's forecast that by 2030 the country will need only 30% of specialists with higher education and 70% with secondary vocational education.

Loans remain advantageous but do not solve the task

Smolin noted that students take out such loans because they are advantageous: they are offered at 3% annual interest. In his view, restrictions in the lending sphere will not contribute to an economic breakthrough. As for the appeal of secondary vocational education, the deputy believes that administrative measures are unlikely to radically change graduates' attitude toward it — raising salaries works more effectively: he cited the example that welders today can quite well compete with IT specialists on this indicator.

What had already been proposed earlier

The situation with education loans had been discussed in the State Duma before. As Gazeta.Ru reported, deputies from the New People faction proposed compensating 25% of the principal debt from the budget on an education loan for students who graduated with honors — in their view, this would tie support measures to the quality of education and ease the financial burden on young specialists at the start of their careers. In addition, Russians had earlier been urged to prepare for a loan application 1–2 months in advance. Thus, the new explanation for the decline in loan issuance concerns demand against the backdrop of a reduction in tuition-based places, rather than the terms of the loans themselves, which remain preferential.