Published Paper Details:

Education loans form a part of the priority sector advances of the Public Sector Banks (PSB) and most of the educational loans are taken for pursuing higher education courses. In the knowledge era, higher education has gained significance all across the world. Like other developing nations, India also faced financial crunch in the early nineties and higher education suffered in terms of allocations. And in the pursuit of raising access ratio in higher education, private institutions entered the field and there has been steep rise in user charges in most-sought-after professional courses like engineering and management in India in the post-reforms period. In the light of the facts that scholarships going to higher education have declined, in real terms, and it is a vehicle of upward mobility, the education loan scheme comes in to focus in order to raise access ratio in higher education. In 2001 the Indian Banks Association has come up with a model frame work for educational loans in the country. With the approval of the Central Government the public sector banks in India started to give education loans. The private and cooperative banks also joined the fray. Due to growing NPAs and the intervention of the Government these norms were modified in 2011. The budget allocation for the primary and higher secondary education is on the increase in India. However, higher education has been of late relegated or left to the mercy of the private players. There has been a steady growth of educational loans disbursed, private colleges and deemed universities started and enrolments of students in higher education during the years 2001 to 2011.