Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, how much was paid in student loans to students from each other EU member state in each of the last five years.

The Student Loans Company (SLC) administers student loans for each of the UK Government Administrations. Statistics showing the number of EU domiciled students receiving student support for Higher Education courses in England are published annually by the SLC in the Statistical First Release (SFR) ‘Student Support for Higher Education in England’.

http://www.slc.co.uk/official-statistics/financial-support-awarded/england-higher-education.aspx

Overall, £11.0 billion was paid in loans for students on full-time courses through the English student support system in the academic year 2014/15. Of this, around 3% was paid in Tuition Fee Loans for EU domiciled students. A breakdown of these payments by EU country of nationality in each of the last 5 years can be found in the table.

The growth in payments over the series largely reflects the increasing proportion of the student population who are drawing the larger fee loans that have been available to students starting courses from September 2012, rather than the number of students.

Evidence shows that these students are net contributors to the UK economy. Universities UK estimate that EU students are worth £3.7 billion to the UK economy and support over 34,000 jobs.