The article with the misleading title “Foreigners are running away from the SU debt” published in DR this week, has caused some waves in the Danish Parliament.
- A far-right politician from the UUI Committee (which was presented last week) asked the minister of integration if internationals with unpaid SU debt should have the right to permanent residence and/or citizenship. Another one asked if the non-EU internationals that left Denmark while having SU debt should be banned from returning? The minister has not answered yet.
- 18,000 internationals have SU debt. 5,000 of them have already left Denmark. The ones that left have a collective debt of 350 million DKK. In total, former international students have a SU debt of 1.3 billion DKK.
- However, there are 120,000 former Danish students that have a total SU debt of 11 billion DKK. Therefore, the problem is not specific to international students. Not to mention, a recent study from IDA has shown that in the last decade, international students contributed 26.8 billion DKK to the Danish economy.
