Many Pakistani students studying abroad under the country’s ambitious foreign-scholarship scheme have found themselves in tuition trouble. Pakistan’s cash-strapped Higher Education Commission has not paid their fees for the latest academic session at the foreign universities they are enrolled in, reports The Nation, a daily newpaper.

The paper reported earlier this week that the commission was on the verge of financial collapse.

A senior official at the commission told the newspaper that more than 2,500 students were enrolled in foreign universities in the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Australia, Austria, and Romania, among others. Other reports, as well as the commission, stated earlier that as many as 6,500 students were studying abroad under the program.

Unnamed students quoted in the newspaper said that their universities had notified them of the problem but that commission officials had assured them that their fees would be paid shortly and that they should continue to attend classes.

While the senior official told The Nation that the foreign-scholarship program would continue as long as money was available for it, another newspaper reported that the commission had already shelved all of its scholarship programs.

The official said Pakistan’s financial crisis was to blame for the late payments. “But it does not mean that we are not paying dues,” he said. The commission, he said, had already negotiated with the universities and had partly solved the problem. —Shailaja Neelakantan