Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund
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The Norwegian State Educational Loan Fund (Norwegian: Statens lånekasse for utdanning) is a government agency that provides loans and grants to Norwegian and certain foreign students for their education. This system is aimed at making higher education available to everyone, regardless of their place of residence within Norway, their age, sex or economic and social status.
Objectives
The objective of the educational support from Lånekassen is
- to remove inequality and to promote equal opportunities so that the pursuit of education is possible regardless of geographical conditions, age, sex and economical and social positions
- to ensure that the work environment for students is satisfactory so that the students may work effectively
- to ensure a steady supply of educated labour
Organization
- Lånekassen's head office is in Oslo and there are branch offices in Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim, Tromsø and Ørsta.
- At the end of 2014, Lånekassen had 293 permanent employees.
History
- Lånekassen was established in 1947 as an extension of a number of welfare schemes for students.
- In its first year, NOK 3.3 million was given in loans to about 2,200 students.
- Since the late 1950s, support has also been given for upper secondary education.
- Means testing of parents before giving support for higher education was abolished in about 1970.
- Large-scale computer systems for the mass processing of applications were developed during the 1980s and 1990s.
- Changes were made in connection with the quality reform of higher education and grants became dependent on the examination results of each individual student.
- In 2001 it became possible to apply for support electronically, and from 2005 it became possible to sign the acknowledgement of debt electronically.
- Since 2009, pupils and students have only been able to apply for support electronically, rather than on paper.
- Since 2004, Lånekassen has been in the process of a renewal programme. The modernisation has been organized in the renewal programme LØFT (Lånekassens ønskede framtid). The programme has involved several projects, the largest of which is to replace the entire customer and case handling solution. The replacement of the customer and case hanling solution was finished in the summer of 2014. The objectives of the renewal are better and more targeted information for customers and partners, increased opportunities for self-service solutions and more automation and streamlining.
Key figures 2014
- Operating expenses in 2014 were NOK 346.2 million. In addition to this, Lånekassen spent NOK 71.9 million on development measures.
- Lånekassen had approximately 1 010 800 customers as at 31.12.2014. About 417,000 people applied for support for the 2013-2014 education year.
- In 2014, Lånekassen processed approximately 850,000 applications for educational support and payment relief/waiver.
- NOK 4.0 billion in grants and NOK 20.2 billion in loans were paid out for the 2013-2014 education year. We can expect almost NOK 5.4 billion of the amount that was paid out in loans to be converted into educational grants (the conversion occurs after passing examinations / completing the course of education).
- The lending portfolio (outstanding educational debt) represents approximately NOK 146.8 billion in total.
