FIRST Minister Carwyn Jones has slammed the organisation responsible for managing student finance in the UK for only introducing a new postgraduate loan scheme in England.

From the academic year starting this September postgraduate students in England will be able to apply for loans of up to £10,000 from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills through the Student Loans Company.

But, speaking in the Senedd on Tuesday, February 2, Mr Jones said the fact the new scheme was not being offered in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland was “wholly unacceptable”.

“The Student Loans Company is there to serve four nations and four governments,” he said. “But it seems the UK government on this occasion thinks it is acting as an English government.

“We are exploring how we might be able to move this forward ourselves, but it’s another example where, bluntly, those in Whitehall don’t know exactly who they are serving.

“It’s appalling that the Student Loans Company sees itself as prioritising only England and not the four nations of the UK.”

Labour AM for Cardiff Central Jenny Rathbone said: “This is discriminating both against Welsh students and Welsh universities who rely on postgraduate schemes to help us fuel the economy.”

A spokesman from the UK Government's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills - which manages the Student Loans Company - said Wales had not been specifically excluded from the scheme.

"Higher education funding policy, and therefore postgraduate education provision, is a devolved matter," he said. "So it would have to be for the Welsh - and Scottish and Northern Irish - governments to decide whether to offer a similar support for students resident there."

The Welsh Government's draft budget for the 2016-2017 financial year includes a 32 per cent cut in higher education funding, with the overall budget falling from £129 million this year to a proposed £88 million.

But the government has said £21 million of this is being invested into financial support for students aged 16 and older.

Some have said the cuts and resulting cutbacks Welsh universities will be forced to make will mean they will become less attractive to prospective students, especially for research purposes.