Malaysian Sentiment Towards Education Loan


It is known that around 50% of Malaysian students today had taken Education Loans such as PTPTN, MARA and recently, JPA too in order to finance their studies.

This scenario highlights a concerning pattern in the realm of higher education, where students not only graduate with diplomas or degrees in their respective fields but also carry varying levels of debt. The prevalence of student debts appears to have become a commonplace aspect of our college experience.

The gravity of graduates facing indebtedness intensifies when a considerable number of young professionals encounter challenges in repaying not only their educational loans but also other debts accrued since entering the workforce, as in the case of PTPTN 51% of loan holders had defaulted.

My name is Fatin Najihah and I am a final year student who is doing her Final Year Project. And, as a soon-to-owner of RM400,000 education debt, I am very interested in :
- how education loans impacted debt holders in their employment decisions
- how does the payment impact the financial decisions and mental health of all debt holders
- what are education loan holders sentiment towards repayment

I believe it is important that we evaluate the financial, economical and mental health impact of these new trend of indebtedness on our future generation. Can you spare 7-10 mins for a questionnaire? It is available in both English and Bahasa Melayu. I am not sure how to verify link here, so to answer the survey just add https:// to this tripetto.app/run/SZ1ZCI1Z84  (Currently 70 respondents away from paper requirements, would appreciate if you can share to others in your family or friends)
Some information discovered during my prior research:
- In the OECD 2020 Finacial Literacy Assessment, Malaysian scores 59.7 in Financial Literacy Score that is assessed on three aspects, financial knowledge, financial behavior and financial attitude. On this, Malaysia scored lower than the average financial literacy score (60.5). Among the 3 segments, Malaysians only scores above average in financial behavior , second only after Indonesia at 68.1 and 69.7 respectively. With the exception of Malta, among the participating countries, Malaysian also scored the lowest in financial knowledge.
- Through a survey done in 2019 by PTPTN, their repayment situation was at 51% defaulters.
- 61.2% of our youth graduates (age less than 25) falls under skill-related underemployment. As in, they are overqualified for their role. This highlights the lack of high skilled jobs to accommodate our number of graduates. (2022 DOSM data)

This begs the question, is higher education worth the cost (financial, future and health) incurred from the debt ? Hence the objective of this research.