Confronting the pressure of the decline in tax revenues that weakens the fiscal capacity, every government around the world appears to change their financial support schemes for students from non-repayable grant to student loans. Reviewing the student loan programs in certain major countries that are notably informative, e.g., U.K., U.S, Australia, Japan and South Korea, there is a trend showing that those countries have not only established designated institutes to issue, manage, and collect student loans, but also demonstrated that government’s support plays an important role in the operation of their student loan programs. In this regard, this study aimed to analyze the five countries presented above. Specifically, the study would be devoted to the understanding of the implementation of the student loan programs as well as the recent educational reforms in the countries and its implications for Taiwan. Namely, by utilizing the methods of document analysis and comparative research, it not only collected and organized the governmental documents and relevant academic literature in the countries, but also revealed the similarities/dissimilarities among them with the methods of description, interpretation, juxtaposition and comparison. Based on the findings of this study, suggestions relatied to the future reform of financial support schemes for students will be proposed.
