STEM students can borrow up to 5 million VND/month

STEM - Ảnh 1. — STEM students can borrow up to 5 million VND/month - Photo: TRAN HUYNH

The Government Office has announced the direction of the Government leaders agreeing to research, develop and submit to the Prime Minister for issuance of a separate decision on credit for students according to simplified procedures to implement Resolution No. 57 of the Politburo and Resolution No. 03 of the Government.

Preferential and outstanding credit policy for students studying STEM majors

According to the Ministry of Finance , preferential credit policies are prescribed, superior to those for students, trainees, and postgraduates (learners) in STEM fields to support the full coverage of tuition fees and major living expenses during their studies at universities and vocational training institutions.

Thereby supporting STEM learners to study with peace of mind, contribute, and meet the requirements for training high-quality human resources in STEM fields to contribute to the breakthrough goals of developing science, technology, innovation and national digital transformation, as well as the goals of rapid and sustainable economic development according to the policies of the Party and State in recent times.

Previously, the Ministry of Finance reported to the Prime Minister on the implementation of tasks related to building credit policies for students in Resolution No. 03 of the Government, in which it recommended that the Prime Minister issue a separate decision on credit for students in STEM majors according to shortened procedures.

On March 13 and 14, the Ministry of Finance chaired and coordinated with the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies to organize an inter-ministerial survey team to work with 6 leading universities in STEM training in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to research and develop preferential credit policies specifically for STEM students.

What are the fields of study and conditions for loans?

The Ministry of Finance submitted to the Prime Minister regulations on loan subjects in the draft decision, which are students, trainees, and postgraduates studying in life sciences, natural sciences, computers and information technology, financial technology, engineering technology, engineering, architecture and construction, production and processing, mathematics and statistics.

Through actual surveys, universities basically have the opinion that STEM majors are difficult, highly technical, have long study periods, are hard, and have higher input and output standards than other majors, so students who decide to study and are admitted to these majors are basically good at all STEM subjects.

Besides, because STEM is a difficult field of study, the percentage of students achieving excellent results every year is very low, mainly achieving good results has met the school's learning quality well.

For master's and doctoral students who continue to be interested in studying STEM, these students are basically university graduates, good and excellent students, and passionate about contributing to the fields of science and innovation.

Regarding the conditions for borrowing capital in the draft, it is stipulated that: students must graduate from high school according to the provisions of law and meet the following conditions at the time the Social Policy Bank decides to lend capital according to the provisions of this decision: for first-year students with three years of high school with good academic performance or higher; from the second year onwards, the average academic results of all subjects must be good or higher in the year preceding the year of applying for the loan.

Students and postgraduates must have graduated from university at the time the bank decides to lend capital according to the provisions of this decision.

Loan amount and loan term

Through actual surveys, STEM training tuition fees for mass programs are about 30-50 million VND/year, advanced/foreign cooperation programs are about 50-70 million VND/year, and training programs of some private/international universities are from 200-300 million VND/year.

According to a survey in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the basic living expenses of students are around 3-5 million VND/month. Thus, the highest tuition fee for STEM majors is over 1.2 billion VND/4-year course; the average is 200 million VND/4-year course.

According to the draft, the maximum loan amount for a student includes the entire tuition fee payable by the student (after deducting scholarships and other financial support from the school) as confirmed by the school and a maximum living allowance of VND 5 million/month.

The loan interest rate for STEM students is equal to the loan interest rate for poor households at the Social Policy Bank in each period according to the provisions of law (currently the interest rate is 6.6%/year).

With the loan term as prescribed in the above draft, in case the student is given a loan from the beginning of the course and the regular course lasts 4 years, the total maximum loan term for the student can be up to 9 years (not including the debt extension period in case the borrower has difficulty in repaying the debt).

This is a long loan term and has enough time for borrowers to balance their debt repayment to the bank (similar to the loan term currently applied to students in difficult circumstances).

TRAN HUYNH

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/nguoi-hoc-cac-nganh-stem-co-the-vay-von-den-5-trieu-dong-thang-20250421161405878.htm