28 March 2007

Media Release:

$9 billion milestone in size of student debt millstone

The $9 billion milestone in student debt level has been reached today. It marks the latest stage in the increasing size of the millstone around the necks of students in tertiary education.

It marks the failure of government policy to make tertiary education affordable and accessible to young New Zealanders - particularly those from low-income communities.

Student fees are now around $4,000 for a year's study and these fees have been rising consistently faster than inflation in recent years under the government's so-called "fees maxima" scheme.

Adding insult to injury only about one-third of students qualify for a student allowance.

These figures are an indictment of educational policy failure.

The government highlights the removal of interest on student loans as a positive step. This is so but does nothing to reduce the need for debt in the first place.

Our tertiary students are suffering to pay for economic policies which have transferred wealth to wealthy New Zealanders and foreigners over the past 20 years.

As QPEC has pointed out in the past, fully funded tertiary education would have been possible from the profits alone of a single state enterprise - Telecom - which was privatised in 1990. Since that time more than $16 billion has been removed from New Zealand by the foreign shareholders of Telecom.

Economic failure is now heaped on the shoulders of the emerging generation. It represents a shameful legacy of failure.

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