West Bengal Student Credit Card Scheme (2021): An Evaluation of Its Role in Expanding Access to Higher Education

Policy Update

Shruti Sethi

Background 

Access to higher education in India has long been constrained less by aspiration than by affordability. West Bengal, despite a relatively strong base in school-level enrolment, has historically trailed the national average in higher education participation. It was against this backdrop that the state government launched the West Bengal Student Credit Card (WBSCC) Scheme on 30 June 2021, under a Gazette Notification issued by the Higher Education Department, positioning it as a flagship intervention to remove the financial barrier standing between capable students and tertiary education. 

Functioning

The WBSCC Scheme allows any West Bengal resident of at least ten years’ standing, aged between 15 and 40, to access a collateral-free loan of up to ₹10 lakh at 4 percent simple annual interest, with a further 1 percent concession for borrowers who service interest during their study period (The Telegraph India). The loan can be used for a wide sweep of educational stages ranging from secondary and higher secondary schooling, undergraduate and postgraduate study, doctoral and post-doctoral research, professional degrees and coaching for competitive examinations such as the UPSC, WBCS and entrance tests for engineering, medical and law.

Loans are available for study within West Bengal, elsewhere in India or abroad, at any recognised institution. Repayment is stretched over fifteen years including a moratorium, with no prepayment penalty, and the loan is disbursed partly to the institution (tuition, hostel fees) and partly to the student’s own account for non-institutional costs such as laptops and books.

Structurally, the scheme was designed to remove the two frictions that most deter first-generation and lower-income borrowers from taking education loans: collateral demands and interest burden. There is no collateral requirement regardless of loan size, and no income ceiling — eligibility rests on residency, age and enrolment status rather than family earnings, making the scheme a universal credit-access instrument rather than a targeted, means-tested one.

Performance

The state’s own Budget Statements offer the clearest, most consistent trend line on the scheme’s growth and the trajectory is worth setting out year by year:

Source: Author’s compilation based on West Bengal Budget Statements, the last presented by Finance Minister Chandrima Bhattacharya on 5th February 2026.

Note: “Budget Statement” refers to the year in which the figure was presented to the Assembly; The 2023–24 Budget Statement reported figures current as of 31 December 2022, which falls within FY 2022–23.

Two things stand out from this trend. First, the ratio of sanctioned loans to applications forwarded to banks was low in the earliest years (roughly 1 in 5 in 2022–23) which matches the operational difficulties reported at the scheme’s launch, when the Chief Secretary constituted district-level committees specifically to examine why so many forwarded applications were not converting into sanctions (Outlook India). Second, the pace of sanctioning has accelerated sharply since: the jump from roughly 62,000 sanctioned students in 2024–25 to over 1,00,000 by late 2025, confirmed separately by the Chief Minister’s public announcement in November 2025 (Millennium Post), suggests that whatever bottlenecks slowed the scheme initially have eased considerably as the portal, bank coordination and district-level processing matured.

Figure: WBSCC sanctioned loans grew roughly fivefold between 2022–23 and 2026–27. Source: West Bengal State Budget Statements. Note: 2023–24 figure is as on 31.12.2022, not a full-year total.

Impact

Beyond the aggregate Budget figures, an independent data-based study of the scheme (Ghara and Ghosh, 2023), drawing on a sample of over 1.25 lakh applications recorded as of April 2022, offers a more granular picture of who the scheme is actually reaching:

• Gender split: 55 percent of applicants were male and 45 percent female overall, though three districts in North Bengal — Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, and Kalimpong — recorded a higher share of female applicants than male, a reversal of the state-wide pattern worth noting for anyone studying regional variation in educational access.
• Course-level distribution: 52 percent of applications were for undergraduate programmes, 28 percent for diploma courses, and 9 percent for postgraduate study, with school-level and coaching-centre applicants also present, indicating the scheme is being used well beyond its headline “higher education” framing.
• Geographic concentration: South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas together account for the largest applicant volumes among all districts, with Kolkata itself trailing several other districts, including Murshidabad, Paschim Medinipur and Hooghly ; a pattern suggesting the scheme is drawing meaningfully from outside the state’s urban core rather than being a metropolitan-skewed instrument.
• Co-borrower profile: Fathers were listed as co-borrowers roughly five times as often as mothers (99,483 versus 20,945 cases), and the largest single occupational category among co-borrowers was neither salaried service nor business but informal or unspecified “other” occupations, whose average annual income was recorded at around ₹72,000 ; a figure that positions the scheme’s actual reach closer to lower-income households than a no-income-ceiling design might suggest on paper.

Taken together, this data supports the claim that the scheme functions as intended for a genuinely wide cross-section of applicants across gender, geography and income, though the sharp father-versus-mother co-borrower gap also signals that decision-making and financial authority within borrowing households remain heavily gendered, a dynamic the scheme’s design does not directly address.

A separate attitude survey of 108 higher education students (Ali and Rahaman, 2021), conducted shortly after the scheme’s launch, found no statistically significant difference in attitude toward the scheme across gender, rural-versus-urban location or family income bracket, suggesting the scheme was perceived similarly favourably across these groups rather than being seen as more relevant to one segment than another. A large majority of respondents agreed the scheme would be convenient for students, would increase interest in higher education, would help remove financial barriers for poorer families, and would specifically benefit girls, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and minority students.

Two findings from the same survey deserve more weight in an evaluative reading than they are usually given. First, opinion on the 4 percent interest rate was split. Only about a quarter of respondents felt it was appropriate as set, with a plurality wanting it lower still.

Second, and more significant, an overwhelming majority (86 percent, combining “strongly agree” and “agree”) believed that students could face psychological distress after using the scheme if they did not secure a job matching their qualifications after graduating. This is a direct empirical signal that debt-anxiety tied to employment uncertainty, not the scheme’s terms themselves, is the primary source of borrower hesitation – a finding that should inform how the state frames and supports the scheme going forward.

How WBSCC Compares with Other States

West Bengal was not the first state to launch a dedicated student credit card, and it is no longer the only one. Two other states run comparable higher-education credit schemes, and setting them side by side clarifies where WBSCC’s design choices sit relative to the field.

Source: Government of West Bengal, West Bengal Student Credit Card Scheme wbscc.wb.gov.in/About ; Government of Bihar, 7 Nishchay Yuva Upmission portal www.7nishchay-yuvaupmission.bihar.gov.in ; Government of Jharkhand, Guruji Student Credit Card Scheme FAQ (gsccjharkhand.com/Home/FAQViewAll

(*for loan amounts above ₹4 lakh, the GSCCs requires the student to contribute 5% margin money which is a partial cost-sharing requirement that neither WBSCC nor BSCC imposes, meaning GSCCS’s headline ₹15 lakh figure is not fully collateral-free in the same sense as WBSCC’s ₹10 lakh)

Bihar Student Credit Card Scheme, launched under the “Saat Nischay Yojana” in October 2016, is the oldest of the three. According to the Bihar Education Department, 80,236 students received BSCC loans in 2024–25, with a further 1.27 lakh students sanctioned loans worth ₹1,013.23 crore for 2025–26 (The Daily Jagran), a smaller per-year volume than WBSCC’s most recent figures, though Bihar’s ₹4 lakh ceiling makes the two loan books not directly comparable in scale. But Bihar’s scheme is considerably narrower in design: a ₹4 lakh ceiling (less than half West Bengal’s), a hard age cutoff of 25, and a compressed repayment window that begins within months of course completion or employment, a much tighter timeline than WBSCC’s fifteen-year runway.

Jharkhand’s Guruji Student Credit Card Scheme (GSCCS), launched in 2022, is the newest of the three but carries the highest loan ceiling at ₹15 lakh, exceeding even WBSCC’s ₹10 lakh cap. Its eligibility design is otherwise close to WBSCC’s (the same 40-year age ceiling and a comparable fifteen-year repayment tenure) though GSCCS additionally restricts eligibility to institutions ranked within the top 200 overall (or top 100 in their category) by NIRF, or accredited Grade A or above by NAAC, a quality-linked eligibility filter that neither WBSCC nor BSCC applies.

Read together, WBSCC and GSCCS are structurally the closest of the three, sharing similar age ceilings and repayment tenures, while Bihar’s BSCC remains the outlier with its tighter age limit and shorter repayment window. WBSCC’s comparative advantage over Jharkhand is not eligibility breadth, as initially thought, but the absence of an institution-ranking filter (WBSCC does not restrict eligibility by NIRF or NAAC ranking) making it usable for a wider range of institutions even as Jharkhand’s higher loan ceiling gives it an edge for higher-cost courses.

Emerging Issues

Read alongside its clear gains in scale and reach, three gaps stand out.

1. No published outcome data linking loans to enrolment or completion. The Budget Statements report sanctioned loans and aggregate amounts (an input-side metric) but there is no publicly available data connecting WBSCC uptake to actual increases in the state’s Gross Enrolment Ratio, retention or completion rates, which is the outcome the scheme is ultimately meant to serve. West Bengal’s GER in higher education rose from 15% in 2012–13 to 18.7% in 2018–19, still well below the national average of 25.8% recorded for 2017–18, the most recent year for which the source provides a national comparison (Mitra & Ghara, 2019). This trend predates the scheme and cannot yet be attributed to it without more recent, scheme-linked data.
2. Repayment performance remains untested at scale. With a fifteen-year repayment window including a substantial moratorium, and the bulk of loan volume sanctioned only in the last two to three years, meaningful data on repayment rates or non-performing assets is not yet available. Given that the state bears the interest subsidy while banks carry the underlying credit risk, this is a fault line worth monitoring as the loan book matures, particularly against a backdrop where borrower anxiety about post-graduation employability is already well documented.
3. Persistent gendered patterns in household financial authority. While the scheme itself makes no gender distinction beyond a small interest concession for girl students, the applicant data shows fathers acting as co-borrower roughly five times as often as mothers, a pattern the scheme’s design does not attempt to shift, even though its stated goals include improving educational access for women.
4. Rapid fiscal exposure growth raises sustainability questions. The scheme’s aggregate loan amount grew nearly tenfold in four years from ₹412.89 crore in 2022–23 to over ₹3,800 crore by 2026–27, a pace of growth that outstrips the roughly fivefold rise in the number of students sanctioned loans over the same period, implying rising average loan sizes per student as well as higher volume. Since the state bears the entire interest subsidy on this loan book, this trajectory translates directly into a growing recurring fiscal liability for West Bengal’s exchequer. Unlike a one-time capital outlay, interest subvention on WBSCC compounds with every fresh cohort of borrowers while the existing loan book is still being serviced, meaning the annual subsidy burden will keep climbing even if new sanctions plateau. No published estimate of this cumulative subsidy cost  as opposed to the loan principal itself appears to be publicly available, making it difficult to assess whether the scheme’s growth rate is being matched by proportionate fiscal planning.

Way Forward

1. Publish outcome-linked data alongside disbursal figures. Periodic reporting that connects WBSCC sanctions to enrolment trends and, where feasible, completion and employment outcomes would allow the scheme to be judged against its actual purpose, not just its throughput.
2. Build early repayment monitoring now, ahead of the first large cohorts entering repayment, so that support mechanisms — restructuring, extended moratoria for job-seeking graduates — can be designed proactively.
3. Pair the credit instrument with career and placement support. Given that debt-related psychological distress is tied specifically to post-graduation employability rather than to the loan terms, complementary placement or career-counselling support for WBSCC borrowers could meaningfully address the scheme’s most-cited concern.
4. Track and report the co-borrower gender gap, and consider targeted outreach to encourage mothers as co-borrowers where fathers are absent, deceased, or non-earning, to align the scheme more closely with its own stated goal of advancing women’s education.
5. Continue district-level process monitoring of the kind first instituted in 2021, given how sharply the sanction-to-application ratio appears to have improved since — evidence that administrative fixes, sustained over time, do move the needle.

Conclusion

The WBSCC Scheme has scaled meaningfully since its uncertain first year, moving from roughly 20,000 sanctioned loans worth ₹413 crore in 2022–23 to over 1 lakh students and ₹3,800 crore by 2026–27, according to the state’s own Budget Statements. Independent research on the scheme’s applicant base suggests it is reaching a genuinely broad cross-section of students by gender, geography, and income, and survey evidence indicates broad-based positive perception among both students and parents.

What remains missing is the outcome side of the ledger: verified data connecting this lending activity to actual gains in enrollment and completion, and a considered response to the one concern borrowers raise most consistently, not the interest rate or the paperwork, but the fear of debt without a job to repay it.

References

Ali, M. M., & Rahaman, A. M. H. (2021). The attitude of the students of higher education about the ‘student credit card scheme’ in West Bengal. International Journal of Applied Research, 7(8), 31–36.https://www.allresearchjournal.com/archives/2021/vol7issue8/PartA/7-7-81-927.pdf

Ghara, T. K., & Ghosh, P. (2023). Determinants of West Bengal Student Credit Card Scheme – A data approach. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 28(8), 59–66. https://www.iosrjournals.org/iosr-jhss/papers/Vol.28-Issue8/Ser-7/I2808075966.pdf

Government of Bihar. (n.d.). Bihar Student Credit Card Scheme (BSCC): Guidelines. 7 Nishchay Yuva Upmission. https://www.7nishchay-yuvaupmission.bihar.gov.in/resources/Guideline.pdf

Government of Jharkhand, Department of Higher and Technical Education. (n.d.). Guruji Student Credit Card Scheme (GSCCS): Frequently asked questions. https://gscc.jharkhand.gov.in/Home/FAQViewAll

Government of West Bengal. (2022, March). Budget speech 2022–23. Finance Department. https://www.cbgaindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Budget-Speech-2022-23-West-Bengal.pdf

Government of West Bengal. (2023, February).  Budget speech 2023–24. Finance Department. https://www.cbgaindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Budget-Speech-3.pdf

Government of West Bengal. (2024, February). Budget speech 2024–25. Finance Department. https://finance.wb.gov.in/writereaddata/Budget_Speech/2024_English.pdf

Government of West Bengal. (2025, February). Budget speech 2025–26. Finance Department. https://finance.wb.gov.in/writereaddata/Budget_Speech/2025_English.pdf

Government of West Bengal. (2026, February). Budget speech 2026–27. Finance Department. https://finance.wb.gov.in/writereaddata/Budget_Speech/2026-2027_English_I.pdf

Government of West Bengal, Department of Higher Education. (n.d.). About the scheme. West Bengal Student Credit Card. https://wbscc.wb.gov.in/About

Millennium Post. (2025, November). ‘Student credit card scheme in Bengal crosses one lakh sanctioned loans’: CM Mamata. https://www.millenniumpost.in/amp/bengal/student-credit-card-scheme-in-bengal-crosses-one-lakh-sanctioned-loans-cm-mamata-637440

Mitra, D., & Ghara, T. K. (2019). Gross enrolment ratio in higher education: A district level analysis of the state of West Bengal. Asian Review of Social Sciences, 8(3), 37–41. https://doi.org/10.51983/arss-2019.8.3.1600

National Informatics Centre, West Bengal State Centre. (n.d.). Student Credit Card Scheme of Government of West Bengal launched to provide study loan at nominal interest. https://wb.nic.in/news/student-credit-card-scheme-of-government-of-west-bengal-launched-to-provide-study-loan-at-nominal-interest-application-developed-by-nic-wb/

Outlook India. (2021, December 17). Bengal govt asks banks to look into complaints under student credit scheme https://www.outlookindia.com/miscellaneous/bengal-govt-asks-banks-to-look-into-complaints-under-student-credit-scheme-news-405459

The Daily Jagran. (2025, June 25). Bihar Student Credit Card Scheme 2025–26: Education dept plans to disburse Rs 1,013 crore loan to 1.27 lakh students. Rs 1,013 Crore Loan To 1.27 Lakh Students https://www.thedailyjagran.com/bihar/bihar-student-credit-card-scheme-2025-26-education-dept-plans-to-disburse-rs-1013-crore-loan-to-127-lakh-students-10247736

The Telegraph India. (2021, December). West Bengal Student Credit Card Scheme: All you need to know. https://www.telegraphindia.com/amp/edugraph/news/west-bengal-student-credit-card-scheme-all-you-need-to-know/cid/1844772

About The Contributor

Shruti Sethi is a Research & Editorial Intern at IMPRI. She holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from St. Xavier’s University, Kolkata. Her research interests include Gender & Labour Economics.

Acknowledgement

The author extends her sincere gratitude to the IMPRI team for their expert guidance and constructive feedback throughout the process.

Reviewed by

Yashkirti Pal and Devanandana C.

Disclaimer

All views expressed in the article belong solely to the author and not necessarily to the organization.

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