What do u guys think of Bank PHB's uk educational loan.Anyone tried to apply tru it and what r your experiences.share them with your fellow nairalanders here

never heard of that. how did u hear it. we will find out anyway.

i have heard of it and you can get all the info you need from the link below

http://www.bankphb.com/live/general/productsservices.php?p=49&productname=Get%20PHB%20Good%20Life%20Today&pid=26&mode=content

Nice idea!,

But seek information .

Education loan and the hidden challenges
By Steve Ayorinde
Published: Thursday, 10 Apr 2008
There is good news for Nigerian students desirous of British qualifications, as an education finance facility, courtesy of Bank PHB, offers assistance to prospective candidates. The Bank PHB Education Loan, which will be available from next month, according to a report in the Financial Standard of Monday April 7, 2008, targets qualified candidates that require financial support in earning a British degree.

All that is required, seemingly, of a candidate or guarantor to benefit from this first-of-its-kind educational facility is to open an education account with the bank and build it up to 50 per cent of the school fees as advised by the institution of the candidate’s choice, after which application can be made for a UK Education Loan that will cover the school fees, accommodation and maintenance for the duration of the course. The 50 per cent deposited with the bank, it was clarified, would be invested on behalf of the candidate by the bank’s asset management unit and held in trust till the completion of the academic programme.

In anticipation of its popularity, the bank is also wooing those already in the UK who might require immediate loans to complete their studies. All it takes is to build up the deposit, get a guarantor to apply for the loan and be ready to service the debt over the tenure of the facility. Obviously eager to support a potentially lucrative initiative to the British education, the British Council in Nigeria is offering total support to the education loan. In 2006/07 academic session alone, according to the figures released by the council, about 11,500 Nigerians pursued full-time undergraduate and postgraduate studies in the UK. Save for a fraction of those that might have benefited from scholarships, the majority would have financed their education through private means. And so with the education loan introduced just in time to meet the 2008/09 academic session, it is expected that many more Nigerians would benefit from the high quality that British education offers; or so it seems.

As a novel idea in an environment where scholarship schemes and organised support grants are limited, the Bank PHB Education Loan will be, no doubt, considered remarkable. In the UK, where the largest number of Nigerians outside the country are believed to be studying, student loans are central to the practical pursuit of higher education. They are an important consideration for many reasons, not the least the fact that they save students the rigour of full or part-time jobs which are always detrimental to their studies during academic terms.

For many Nigerians studying in the UK, the first lesson always learnt is that student loans are the most common financial arrangements made to ease the financial burden of studying. But as international candidates, they are usually excluded from such facilities. And anybody that had ever been in financial dire straits as an international student would know the limitation of 20 hours of part-time job in a week, as well as the long winded process to earn meagre respite from charities and foundations.

A home-grown facility such as Bank PHB is proposing may, therefore, sound like the needed impetus to earning a degree that tends to guarantee a good job. Yet, cryptically, an educational loan specifically designed for overseas studies alone tends to raise more questions than it answers. And it all comes down to huge figures!

While the intention will be saluted, questions are bound to be asked as to why it becomes expedient to support the quest to study abroad than to support at home, both the crumbling infrastructure of learning and the obvious widening gap between all higher institutions combined and the growing band of secondary school leavers roaming the streets, even with the requisite five Ordinary Levels credits and universities’ admission requirements.

Could it then be for the reason of pecuniary gains to the bank alone that a student would be encouraged to apply for a student loan of more than N2m per session, for tuition fees alone in a UK university, than invest say N350,000 per session in a reliable private university in Nigeria, since the perception that public universities are prone to disruptions of academic calendars still persists?

It is worth explaining, when Bank PHB compares its scheme to student loans abroad, does it take into account the fact that home students in the UK only pay a fraction of the fees paid by Nigerians and other foreigners; and yet, enjoy government-backed loans that grow with inflation every year and are paid off as a graduate tax of 10 per cent on earnings over £15,000 a year?

The comparison, certainly, is misplaced. While a British undergraduate or a postgraduate candidate would ideally pay £3,000 for tuition in a year with a loan not repayable except he gets a job worth £15,000 a year; a Nigerian ‘beneficiary’ of the new education loan will first have to deposit N1m before getting twice that amount to pay for a year’s tuition at not less than £9,000 in the UK, if he is in a non-science or MBA class.

For an undergraduate with a four-year course who is also similarly billed per year, almost N10m would have been taken as loans for school fees alone. Pray, what repayment terms, considering the impact of compound interest, would rescue such a student from perpetual indebtedness? If the education loan is meant to come across as a scheme for the rich and the upper middle class alone, it will be interesting to see how many will appreciate the wisdom in borrowing half of what you can afford; and as more cynical fellows would say, invest in the British education in a year what would be sufficient to build a bungalow in six months.

What all these say to the education sector in Nigeria is that the situation is less than ideal. And we are not just seeing it in the stupendous amount that some candidates are willing to invest in education abroad, but also in the huge number of those keen to leave as education migrants every year.

According to the British High Commission, only 8,000 out of the 28,000 that applied for student visas in 2006 were granted (17,000 applications for student visas were refused in 2007). At N27,000 non-refundable fees, the High Commission would have made about N540m from the applications that were rejected alone. And if half of those granted ended up enrolling, millions of pound sterling would have been injected into the British education sector, courtesy of Nigerians.

While it is, no doubt, desirable, every education loan, whether at home or abroad, requires a good sense of financial acumen from potential candidates. What is sad, however, is that we may be seeing the result of many years of heavy advertisement of all shades of British education in Nigeria, with every kind of institution purporting to offer the best for the abroad-crazy Nigerian student.

this bank phb u.k education loan is not as simple as they have publicised it. you will need to open 1 savings account and 1 current account.you will need to save up to 10% of your fees in your savings account and 20% of the loan you want in your current account. you are expected to pay 19% of your loan every month starting from the month after the one you took the loan. so, if you take a loan of say, 5milion naira,what you will pay monthly is 19/100*5000000. does that sound cool?

my people this our country is one big irony the developed world is runnin from loans and unneccessary credit we are preachin it not all that glitters is gold phb loan you will be indebted till you die, i promise i work in a financial institution beliv me.the nu credit cards in town do u kno that if u analyze ur payment plan u wud have cuffed out 100%interest in a year.on the lease for cars it is better i dont tell u.  please someone tell me are these loans  a curse or a blessing.

Good talk Koinage,

It is no different from having a credit card.