HYPNOTHERAPY, aromatherapy and Christian proselytising courses have been approved for taxpayer-funded student loans, which are set to balloon over the next three years.

The federal Education Department has granted 200 TAFE and private training colleges approval to offer “study-now, pay-later” courses costing up to $25,000.

The government pays the ­tuition fees and students repay the money once they earn more than $53,345. But Treasury is predicting that one in four will never pay back the taxpayer loans.

The university loans scheme was expanded to students in vocational colleges this year to encourage more young Australians to complete technical and trade courses. But dozens of non-trade courses have been included in the approved list — including a $10,602 diploma of hypnotherapy for pregnancy and childbirth through the Academy of Hypnotic Science.

The course takes just 21 days, according to its website, and the syllabus includes “writing hypnotic scripts for mums-to-be’’ and “neurolinguistic programming’’.

The Phoenix Institute in Melbourne offers a $16,500 advanced diploma in “transpersonal counselling’’ or in “transpersonal art therapy’’. Taxpayers also contribute $4500 towards the cost of the course through the Victorian government’s training guarantee.

The Queensland government is also heavily subsidising some courses, paying $2090 towards the cost of a certificate II in greyhound racing and $5064 for a certificate III in floristry.

The Health Arts College in Melbourne can now offer student loans for its $10,424 advanced ­diploma of nutritional medicine, as well as an advanced diploma of aromatic medicine. Unique International College in Sydney charges students $25,000 for a six-month diploma of hairdressing salon management.

Students can also borrow from taxpayers to study at the Harvest West Bible College in Perth, which advertises its two-year diploma of ministry course for $12,240 per year of study. Hope College, on the Gold Coast, offers a $1980 diploma of ministry, which includes teaching “effective prayer skills’’ and “responding to the call of God’..

The budget papers show the number of students deferring their course fees through VET FEE-HELP loans will treble from 87,700 in 2013-14 to 263,500 in 2017-18. Master Builders chief executive Wilhelm Harnisch said government spending on some non-trade courses could be a “waste of taxpayers’ money’’.

“We are deeply concerned about RTOs (registered training organisations) simply delivering courses for the sake of it to generate an income stream and chase government funding,’’ he said yesterday. “We have a shortfall of skills in the building industry and we will have to rely more on overseas workers.’’

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s director of employment, education and training, Jenny Lambert, said the government should not dictate which courses receive government funding. “We don’t want the government to be picking what we need and don’t need,’’ she said. “But we do need it to be concentrating on the risk and quality ­issues (in vocational training).”

One in four students is unlikely to repay the money, the budget ­papers show, with the “proportion of new debt not expected to be ­repaid’’ to rise from 17 per cent last year to 23 per cent in 2017-18.