Minister for Tertiary Education Max Bradford said today that the Government had no intention of selling student loan accounts to the private sector.

Mr Bradford's comments came after he released documents about the securitisation of student loans under the Official Information Act

"Over the past few years there have been a number of overtures made to the Government from financial organisations in relation to selling student loan accounts," Mr Bradford said.

"However, it is not an option being looked at by this government.

To ensure the student loan scheme continues to operate in an effective and fair manner the following issues were examined as part of a review last year:

 The use of student loan entitlements for non-education related purposes;
 The access of young students to student loans without parental consent;
 The burden of long student loan repayment periods for some borrowers;
 Size of total student loan debt.

"During the review many options were looked at with the goal of reaching the above objectives," Mr Bradford said.
"Securitisation was just one of the many options looked at as part of the review process.

"Treasury advised the Government that "it is likely that the costs of securitising student loans would exceed the benefits to the Crown," Mr Bradford said.

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