“I would like to give all of you work. And that work is called student loans.”

These words were uttered by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo about a year ago in a meeting with representatives of 114 banks at the State Palace. He urged the local banks to provide student loans to help more Indonesian students to pursue a higher education.

The student loan initiative hopes to increase access to tertiary education for high school graduates, part of the government’s comprehensive program to improve the quality of human resources in the country.

Several banks have since then responded to the call, offering loans with lenient requirements and loan limits to give high school and university graduates options in higher education. Yet, more than a year later, education-related loans have struggled to gain traction.

The managing director of state-owned Bank Tabungan Negara’s (BTN) distribution network, Budi Satria, said an educational loan program launched by the bank in 2018 received a lack of interest.

BTN, which specializes in mortgage loans, offers a student loan with a credit ceiling of Rp 200 million ($14,500) and interest rate of 6.5 percent a year. The loan is relatively affordable compared to general loans, yet few students have applied for it. Budi said that from April last year until July this year, the bank had disbursed a total of Rp 33.83 billion to 470 students.

He added that he would continue to spread awareness on the program to mitigate the problem, although he did not specify how the bank would attempt to do so.

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