Over the past five years, the Students’ Loan Bureau (SLB) in Jamaica has been struggling to fulfil its mandate of disbursing loans to qualified students. The established government funded SLB was not equipped to handle the 153% increase in loan applications over the period 2007 to 2012.

With this crisis and little change to the SLB’s funding policy, many students had and continue to seek alternative funding options. In response to this crisis, commercial banks have expanded their loan offerings. However, many commercial banks have found offering student loans, to be challenging due to the regulations that are required.

Hence, the research question seeks to ascertain whether students can afford the funding options offered by commercial banks in Jamaica. Three top tier tertiary institutions that have a bachelor degree in business administration program and five major commercial banks were selected for the study. It was discovered that all the funding options provided by the commercial banks were affordable when students chose University A; two of the five options were affordable when students chose University B and none when University C was chosen.

The study highlights the need for policy changes to strengthen the viability and sustainability of the SLB.