The purpose of this essay is to explore the (im)possibility of achieving two important but, seemingly, contradictory goals of 'efficiency' and 'equity' in higher education through the case of student loans market. Here, 'efficiency' is defiend in terms of internal efficiency in economics i.e. as producing the right bundle of outputs given the needs and wants of stakeholders, and then minimizing production
cost for the given bundle (Massy, 2004:13). Broadly, the concern for equity invokes the question whether the current higher education system meets society's requirements for justice such as equality of opportunities across social categories (Johnstone, 2004).