In recent years the board has taken steps to ensure that Swedes resident overseas do not get away with neglecting to pay back their outstanding student loans.

The board has employed debt collections agencies, scoured social networking sites such as Facebook, and enlisted the help of lawyers in several countries to track down defaulters.

CSN now hopes that the Swedish government will grant the right to demand full repayment of student loans from overseas defaulters, a measure that it argues could provide sufficient incentive to those currently evading payment.

“It will quite simply strengthen the resolve to repay,” CSN’s director-general Kerstin Borg Wallin told SR’s Ekot news program.

It is reported that a government bill to be presented in the autumn is expected to grant the additional powers to assist CSN in obliging defaulters to meet their obligations.

According to CSN more than 25 percent of debtors resident overseas are in serious default – owing a total of 3 billion kronor ($380 million) to the Swedish state. By comparison only three percent of debtors resident in Sweden neglect to meet their obligations.