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Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Revenue Minister Peter Dunne today welcomed significant progress in reducing the cost of student loan lending.

“We are committed to interest-free student loans, and want a long–term affordable scheme for both students and taxpayers,” Mr Joyce says.

“When Labour took the interest off student loans, the write-off of student loans ballooned out to 48 cents in the dollar.

The Government’s programme to collect overdue student loan repayments from overseas-based borrowers has now brought in $20 million, with a further $2.9 million under payment arrangements, Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Steven Joyce and Revenue Minister Peter Dunne say.

The scheme began in late October 2010 as a pilot targeting 1000 Australian-based borrowers and has recently been extended to 57,000 borrowers, largely in Australia and the United Kingdom, over the next two and a half years.