Wannabe model starts uni so she can use student loan for boob job

An aspiring glamour model has admitted taking out a student loan with no intention of studying - in order to pay for a boob job.

Catherine Byrne, now 29, told the Sun that she applied to study psychology at the University of East London simply to get the loan.

She says she attended lectures for the first two weeks before abandoning all efforts at work.

"As soon as the money hit my account I booked in to have a breast enlargement in London and I quit my course. My new boobs made me feel a million times better about myself," she says.

"I told my family and friends what I had done and they just laughed. They all know I'm always finding ways to get what I want — I don't think they were surprised."

Byrne then splashed out on Botox and collagen injections, saying she wanted to look 'frozen' with 'big plump lips'.

And when, unsurprisingly, she failed the first year of her course, she applied to retake it - and took out another loan. She spent it on more cosmetic procedures, clothes and a car.
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Byrne now owes a total of £17,572. And because the loan dates from 2008, she won't have to start paying it back until she earns more than £17,000 a year. After 25 years the debt will be written off.

Despite claiming that she's 'invested in her future', Byrne doesn't appear to have had much of a pay-off.

"Modelling isn't very well paid and I only take a few jobs a month, so I don't see myself earning enough to pay [the loan] back," she says.

And given that it's more than six years since the boob job and her career hasn't taken off yet, she's probably right.

Few people taking out a student loan for its intended purpose are quite so resigned to being on a low income for the rest of their lives.

However, according to a report released by the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) last year, as much as 35-40% of total outstanding student loans will never be repaid.

That amounts to as much as £18 billion on the current level of loans - and £80 billion on the estimated value of student loans by 2042.

Indeed, it's looking distinctly possible that taxpayers will end up forking out more to support students - and people like Byrne - than they did before fees went up to £9,000 a year.