John Minto: Loans create more barriers

John Minto

Lost from the debate about the proposals to remove interest rates from student loans is whether we should have a student loans scheme at all. Education Minister Trevor Mallard has often defended it by claiming the scheme gives all students the opportunity to access quality tertiary education.

This is partially true but only if one accepts that tertiary fees are a good idea in the first place. Basic fairness and equal opportunity say they are not.

I teach at a school in a low-income community which carries a government label Decile 1. Over recent years the school has developed a strong drive to increase the number of our students entering high-level tertiary education.

From just a handful going to university each year we now have 22 students who have begun degree courses this year with larger numbers entering quality courses at our local polytech.

The barriers to working-class students (with Maori and Pacific Island students over-represented in this group) entering high-level, high-quality courses are nothing new so these communities are hopelessly under-represented as doctors, accountants, scientists, architects, chemists, dentists, engineers etc.

These barriers have become much higher over the past 20 years as wealth has shifted from the poorest sections of our community to the most affluent.

But instead of working to remove or lower these barriers, successive governments have erected yet another through requiring students to borrow money to pay for tertiary fees and living expenses.

At the end of last year we calculated the cost of first-year tertiary fees for our students to be around $240,000.

There have been scholarships to ease the burden for some but no such luck for the majority.

For our students this typically means paying tertiary fees of around $4000 a year, paying the daily bus fare into the city another $2000 a year and paying for books, meals and living expenses.

On the other hand one third of New Zealand students do not have a student loan. These are the lucky ones on full scholarships or who have parents wealthy enough to write out cheques to cover the myriad costs.

Middle-class parents for their part are often able to soften the impact of tertiary costs for their children but not so most working-class parents on low incomes.

We know for example from the government's own figures that 15 per cent of New Zealand families borrow money to pay for basic necessities such as electricity or groceries. There is no chance here to ease the burden.

Borrowing money in itself is seen by many students and families as a very dangerous proposition. They see the appalling effect of debt around them in the community often in their own family through HP agreements, car financing and loan sharking. It's just too scary to see their children take on such an horrendous burden.

In this context Labour's policy is a significant first step but it is undermined by a fees policy which allows tertiary fees to increase annually by 5 per cent- even above the rate of inflation. Year by year students will need to borrow more in the first place to cover the extra cost.

Is it any wonder that many of our most academically able students simply don't make it into high quality tertiary education? The cost is often the predominant factor as well as such things as family pressures to become income earners to help bridge the gap between family income and family expenses.

Setting high standards and having high expectations for our students is critical to their success at school.

It's high time we set high standards and had high expectations of our politicians to deliver access to community funded, high-quality tertiary education for all our children.

Don Brash, Helen Clark, Jeanette Fitzsimons, Winston Peters, Peter Dunne, Jim Anderton, Rodney Hide and I all received free tertiary education. There is no reason aside from baby boomer greed to deny this to the next generation.

* John Minto is national chairperson of the Quality Public Education Coalition.