European graduates from UK universities owe £50m in unpaid fees, a Freedom of Information request has revealed.
The Independent report:
Private investigators have been called in to track down hundreds of overseas graduates from UK universities who have gone missing owing millions of pounds in loans bankrolled by the British taxpayer.
The Student Loans Company (SLC) has been forced to take dramatic measures to claw back its money after the amount owed by European Union graduates who are not repaying their tuition-fee loans rose to more than £50m in five years.
Hundreds of EU nationals who have returned home and reached the income threshold at which they should be paying back their loans have slipped into arrears. Many have failed to provide any salary details, so that officials cannot even start the process of reclaiming their debts.