KEY POINTS:
I am a Kiwi, I have a degree from Auckland University, and yes, I do currently live overseas in Britain.
I have a student loan of about $30,000. My wife's is just tipping the scales at $44,000.
My wife found work in her field of study, but for me, a geology degree was to open few doors. I subsequently went into the trades. We worked full-time jobs and paid what was required into our student loans.
We came overseas in 2005, looking for better jobs, better money and of course the opportunity to travel. We accepted our commitments of two student loans.
We try to refrain from whingeing about our student loans, as we did knowingly enter a contract with the lender (the New Zealand Government) for the cash to fund an education that we wanted to buy.
No one made us seek a higher education, but perhaps as a hangover from not-so-long-ago times when university education was free, we quite naturally slid on into the lecture theatres - but with a bag of debt on our shoulders.
But that's all water under the bridge now. What hasn't flowed under the bridge for me just yet is this seemingly double standard on who gets charged interest on their loan.
Why are they charging overseas loan-holders interest on their student loans when those at home pay none?
Is it to provide an incentive to return home early? Or to never leave the country?
An OE is just that, an Overseas Experience. New Zealand is a very open-minded country, and Kiwis overseas pride themselves on that.
To discourage the OE tradition is sad and would change not only New Zealanders' open-mindedness but also the greater world's view of us. Not to mention the wealth of skills and work experience that we bring home.
Is it for revenue? Well, here's how it goes: Interest-only repayments by my wife and me equate to $5000 a year. That's enough for most of our travel plans to be binned.
So basically, some smarty-pants has devised a plan to not only rein in money from relatively voiceless overseas student loan holders, but to get them home early so New Zealand can benefit from their now-limited experience.
We spent more than five years covering interest repayments on our student loans when we lived in New Zealand and almost three more since we've been overseas. That's $40,000 in interest alone, without even touching the principal amounts!
If we were starting out as graduates now and paid a similar amount, we would have knocked the loan on its head. It feels highly unfair for many caught in the middle.
Do the fair thing and retro-credit our student loans - convert the interest payments into principal payments. And don't stop there; zero interest for all.
We're not asking for our education to be free; we're past that grievance. All we're asking for is more recognition of the effort most of us have put in and to be treated fairly.
Jeff Goh has sent his opinion piece to several people, from the Prime Minister down. He is keen on reader responses.
