A push for unpaid student loans to be recovered from deceased estates is gaining momentum with Federal MPs from both major parties calling for more to be done to reduce the billions of dollars in higher education debt racked up each year.

Unlike most social security and tax debts, unpaid student loans are written off at death, costing Australian taxpayers billions of dollars a year.

As of June 30 last year, only $35.9 billion out of total student debt of $55.4 billion is expected to be repaid to the Commonwealth.

WA Liberal MP Ben Morton and Victorian Labor MP Julian Hill are spearheading the call for change, saying there is a strong policy case to look at recovering student debts from certain estates.

“Those who enter into student loan agreements do so freely (and) there needs to be an understanding that these loans are from the Australian taxpayer and must be repaid,” Mr Morton said.

“Student loans should be treated in the same way as tax debts and social security debts because that is exactly what they are.”

While neither major party has adopted the policy, the Grattan Institute has found that recovering debt from deceased estates worth more than $100,000 would claw back almost $2.8 billion a year to government coffers.

The idea was floated in a discussion paper for the higher education sector in 2014, but was rejected by then prime minister Tony Abbott.

Mr Hill said in Parliament this week that he would work with Mr Morton to develop a proposal on the issue, and then seek broader parliamentary support, while acknowledging it was a “politically very difficult option”.

He said that it was “peculiar” that when you died, no matter how wealthy you were and no matter how big your estate, student debt was written off.

“Many people who die without repaying debts will actually be from wealthy households,” Mr Hill said. “It’s politically difficult, mainly because it’s very easy to carry on and call this a death tax and such nonsense but there is a case to look more closely at it.”

Education Minister Simon Birmingham said the Federal Government had no plans to pursue deceased estates but welcomed “constructive contributions to the debate on how we can further ensure the long-term sustainability of our student loans scheme”.