Sustainability of Higher Education Students’ Loan Scheme (HESLS) in Tanzania

Abstract

The Higher Education Students’ Loans Scheme (HESLS) had been facing challenges such as a continuous rise in students’ financial requirements exceeding the government budget. It also faces hardship in identifying the poor needy students and low rate of the repayment recovery mainly due to strategic deferred debts. Other problems came from mistaking the loans for government grants, expectations of full coverage from the loans, and misunderstanding the loan terms. This study examines the financial sustainability of HESLS operating in Tanzania via the Higher Education Students’ Loans Board (HESLB). This study, therefore, employs a mix method approach; use both secondary and primary data in the analysis. The results found that despite the fact that there is a decreasing trend of Operating Self-Sufficiency (OSS), the set of the independent variable tested correlate with the dependent variable. The study suggests that HESLB should expand its revenue base so as to avoid the adverse trend of OSS. It is advised that offloading some of the responsibility to issue loans to private banks may alleviate the pressure on the government.