Faced with very low repayment rates, Development Bank of Rwanda (BRD) is pushing for reforms to the law governing the student loan program and demanding sanctions against bad payers. As of January 2021, the Bank has only recovered FRW 24.4 billion out of an outstanding FRW 221.85 billion. The number of loan recipients is 139,925 while only 18,626 have cleared their loans, which represents only 13.3%. Some attribute the collection difficulties to the multiplicity of institutions that have had to manage the student loan program since its inception in 1980, notably the Ministry of Education and its affiliated organizations, such as the Rwanda Education Board (REB ) and the now defunct Rwanda Student Finance Agency (SFAR).
