The countries of the Anglophone Caribbean wish to have their tertiary education systems play a more significant role in nation building, consistent with a developing consensus on the critical role of tertiary education in processes of national development. However, they are confronted with two problems: the first is their comparatively low levels of tertiary-level enrolment; the second is their comparatively high levels of national debt. The challenges of financing tertiary education are therefore particularly acute in the region. This paper reviews these challenges, recording the experiences across the region in developing student loan systems, and proposes that these countries transform them in the direction of income-contingent loan programmes. International experience has suggested that such programmes are effective in creating sustainable and efficient tertiary financing systems, while engendering social justice as well, by removing the disincentives students from low-income backgrounds experience when countries use the conventional “mortgage-type” student loan systems that currently obtain across the Caribbean.