Blunder of the decade? Student loans come top

PATRICK GOWER on a worrying link between debt and depression.


Four out of 10 people think the student loans scheme was New Zealand's biggest blunder of the 1990s.

The controversial scheme beat the 1991 benefit cuts and MMP to become public enemy number one in a survey of New Zealand attitudes released today.

Dropping Buck Shelford as All Black captain and voting for New Zealand First leader Winston Peters also rated among respondents' replies.

Not surprisingly, the student loans scheme was most unpopular with young people. Fifty-seven per cent of those aged 18 to 24 viewed it as our biggest blunder.

CM Research and public relations firm Crossman Porter Novelli polled 1000 New Zealanders from all walks of life for the survey, which also showed that 49 per cent of those aged 18 to 24 have suffered from depression, compared with 35 per cent of the general population.

Twenty-seven per cent also admitted alcohol problems, compared with 16 per cent of the general population.

The survey was carried out late last year.

Crossman Porter Novelli managing director Jill Dryden said the link between New Zealand's troubled youth and the unpopular student loans scheme should be taken seriously.

"This is more than coincidental. We are not psychologists, but the relationship here should be examined further."

The Alcohol Advisory Council's treatment development manager, Ian MacEwan, said the poll was a "useful snapshot and wake-up call."

"If a product of that [student loans] is a feeling that their life is out of control or depression, then one would expect there would be a link ... It's common sense."

Tertiary Education Minister Steve Maharey said the survey results showed that solutions to the loans scheme were needed immediately.

"Loans have always been a source of depression, stress and anxiety for young people.

"People are now saying: 'Stop this nonsense'."

Mr Maharey said the Government had already removed the interest from loans while students were studying as part of a wider review of the scheme.

National education spokesman Nick Smith, who was part of the Administrations that guided the scheme through the 1990s, said the scheme was being viewed as a blunder only because of a difficult adjustment period.

"Student loans are nothing new now. People are just searching for nostalgia of the times when tertiary education was free."

Student leaders said any possible link between loans and depression was a great concern.

Sam Huggard, co-president of the New Zealand University Students Association, said the poll results were "unsurprising but distressing."

"There was always a lack of research into the long-term implications of the scheme. Sadly, now we are seeing the results."

David Penney, president of the Aotearoa Polytechnic Students Union, said that pressure from student loans just "seeped into everything."

"There's always been a link between a bleak outlook on life and the student loans scheme.

"It's going to become an even bigger blunder over the next decade when the overall loan total of the loans just balloons with interest.

"This feeling just gets worse once people get out of university and come to the full realisation of how hard their loans will be to pay back."

The survey is the fourth wave of research from the CM/Logos Currents of Thought project, which has previously canvassed issues such as Kiwi style and icons, the changing role of women and how we rate ourselves as a nation.