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* Students owe universities thousands of pounds in emergency loans made to tide them over until their Student Loans Company cheques arrived last term.

At Staffordshire University some 150 students still owe Pounds 31,000. The University of Sunderland issued 135 emergency loans totalling Pounds 13,500 but was unable to identify how many were still outstanding.

The University of Warwick made a few loans, half of which are still outstanding. A spokesman said that the defaulters were suffering genuine hardship and that the loans were likely to be reclassified as hardship loans and access grants.