Can a student borrow?
From what age can you take out a loan or a mortgage? Can students borrow without the help of their parents?
Do you want to acquire a moped, a scooter, a car, take out a loan to finance your leisure activities, or even better to pay the rent of your student room, your university tuition, the purchase of your courses, necessary school supplies…
Can you borrow when you are still a minor?
Simulate your loan online
We are receiving more and more credit requests from people who have not yet reached the age of majority.
What about it? Let’s take a look at this important question.
The Student Loan
The law is unequivocal in Belgium and as in most other European countries.
A minor – that is, in Belgium, a person who has not reached the age of 18 – is considered civilly incapable.
The law does not allow them to engage in legal acts. They are deemed legally incapable and will need their parents or legal guardians to represent them in all circumstances.
A young person under the age of 18 cannot, therefore, take out a loan or credit of any kind on their own.
The legislator wanted to protect the minor from reckless acts they might regret later, acts that could heavily burden their assets for many years.
Is there an alternative solution?
Of course! As legal representatives, the minor’s parents or, failing parents, a legal guardian (under the supervision of the Justice of the Peace) can borrow for the minor.
In this case, the credit contract is not signed by the young person but directly by their parents or legal guardian.
The minor as such does not contract any legal obligation.
The student loan in the United States
Across the Atlantic, it’s a very different story that has been written since always because statistics reveal that on average young people who graduate from colleges or universities are indebted to the tune of nearly $25,000, roughly €20,000.
These are loans granted to them by banking institutions solely for the purpose of completing higher education.
The young graduate then repays this loan as soon as they receive their first salaries.
Proponents of this facility consider it an excellent way to allow young minors whose parents do not have sufficient financial resources to also access education, while others criticize the fact that these young people enter professional life with a financial liability already amounting to €20,000.
Everyone has their opinion. As far as we are concerned, we refer to the economic dynamism that exists in the United States to encourage our legislators to allow students to borrow solely for the purpose of pursuing higher education (to pay tuition, rent for a student room, purchase of courses, language courses, purchase of school supplies, a vehicle to get to classes, etc.).
This is an intelligent way to make the young person responsible very early in their professional journey.
It is obvious that a bank can assess the quality of the loan applicant based on the academic results obtained prior to their loan application.
Social equality also involves financing, even if this is an idea that a certain political trend cannot decidedly grasp, like many other concepts…
We must advocate for one day, perhaps, Europe to have broad ideas and ambitions so that our young talents remain European…