Debt Composition of University Graduates and their Attitude towards Education Loan

Abstract

A worrying trend in the Malaysian higher education environment is that students graduating not only with diplomas or degrees of their disciplines but also with debts. Graduates with debts becomes a serious issue when  loan but also other debts that they create since entering the job market. This paper examines the debt composition of 186 graduates and their attitudes towards education loans. The education debt-to-income ratio is found to be in the range of 1.8 percent to 12 percent; where a ratio beyond 8 percent is deemed unsafe. Keywords: graduate debts; education loan; debt-to-income ratio; higher education; attitude to education debts. eISSN 2514-7528 © 2017 The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK . This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.