Hungary's higher education system has been going through a gradual shift from an elite to a mass system: enrolment has surged in recent decades. There is growing pressure on financing, with rising costs, limited public funding and an increasing student population. In parallel, there is a growing recognition that an important part of the benefits of participation in higher education is private, which is part of the justification for sharing the cost of education between students and taxpayers. The implementation of a student loan programme is fundamental for ensuring that financially needy students have access to higher education, to further stimulate the growth of private higher education, and for raising the political feasibility of levying tuition fees for all first-degree students. Accordingly, a new institution--Diakhitel Kozpont--was established in Hungary in 2001, with the objective of granting loans for higher education students. The results from a comprehensive research study indicate that those students who come from poorer financial or income status families are more likely to ask for a loan, enabling them to benefit from the higher education system. The student loan programme provides Hungary with a potentially important instrument for the support of further institutional and policy change in HE. (Contains 11 tables and 5 figures.)