The Bay of Plenty Polytechnic showed no need for revival, when Labour's deputy leader Grant Robertson visited the campus as part of his "Save Our Polytechs" campaign yesterday.
While the Windermere campus was a hive of orientation week activity, Mr Robertson said the whole region was suffering from continuous cuts in government funding to the polytech.
Mr Robertson said he believed it was short-sighted for the Government to cut funding to the polytech by more than $2 million during a time when the area was host to the second highest proportion of the 90,000 people not in education, employment or training in the country.
"Unemployment is 1.7 percentage points higher in the Bay of Plenty than the national average. People are crying out for training opportunities," he said.
The polytech had suffered funding cuts every year since 2009, its budget surplus dropping by about three-quarters during this time.