Effective April 1, the Student Loan Bureau (SLB) will disband the need for a guarantor for accessing loan benefits.

Finance Minister Nigel Clarke mad the announcement on Tuesday (March 12) as he opened the 2024/2025 Budget Debate in Parliament.

“I am pleased to announce that effective April 1, the Student Loan Bureau will no longer require guarantors for students to access tertiary financing. Going forward, no guarantors will be required for student loans accessed after April 1,” he declared.

Clarke shared a story of Sheryl, one of his constituents in his North West St. Andrew, who told him that her son, Malik, had graduated from Jose Marti High School in 2019 and she wanted him to go to university but was advised by the SLB that she doesn’t earn enough working at an ice cream shop to be a guarantor for her son.

Mother and son present in Parliament 

This was during the lead-up to the recently concluded Local Government Elections.

Malik reportedly graduated with seven subjects. Both mother and son were in Parliament to hear the guarantor system being disbanded.

 “With this policy, Malik will be the first in his family to go to university. Under this Government, we want every youth to be a star,” Clarke bellowed to thunderous applause from his side of the chamber. He argued that the requirement of a guarantor for student loans is a regressive policy that discriminates against low-income families, who cannot as easily, if at all, find someone with the means and willingness to stand guarantee for them. 

This policy, according to Minister Clarke, has been in place for several decades and he is happy to abolish the requirement for guarantors for student loans. He reminded the parliament that over the past few years, his administration has made changes in how SLB is accessed and the results. 

In the 2022/23 budget, he reminded that the government removed the requirements for guarantors to be provided for applicants who are Wards of the State. Within the twelve months of that policy change the number of Wards of the State, who applied to the SLB increased from 46, the previous year to 98 an increase of over 100 per cent.

Last year, in the 2023/24 budget the government removed the requirements for guarantors to be provided for applicants from PATH Households. Since the administration lifted the requirement for guarantors within the last 12 months, the number of PATH beneficiaries accessing the SLB jumped from 192 in the previous year to 547 noting the year is not yet finished and already representing  a 185 per cent increase