The tumultuous history of deciding who pays for university
The University of Waikato opened in1964, and its students back then had a much different experience financing university than we do today. From 1962 until 1989, the government paid for tertiary tuition fees in full with the state bursary.
As the story often goes, all good things must come to an end. With economic pressure in the late 1980s and a demand for more educated workers, the Fourth Labour Government introduced a user-pays system to tertiary education. Phil Goff, Education Minister at the time, reasoned that “the student contribution is necessary to bridge the gap between funding available for expanding tertiary education and the huge rise in demand for tertiary places.”
For those who went to university during the first ten years of student loans, it was a rough time. Interest began accumulating the day school leavers took out a loan at the ripe age of 18.
Fortunately for us, Labour introduced interest-free student loans in the year 2000, provided that one stayed in New Zealand. National initially opposed the policy but decided not to scrap it under John Key. This was much to the dismay of David Seymour, who called it a “cynical bribe” in 2016. Education Minister Stephen Joyce defended the decision, saying “there’s a broad public consensus that the government should be making a contribution”.
Fees free: meant to be a happy ending
While 2016 was often regarded in its time as “the worst year ever”, Andrew Little had a lot of hope in his State of the Nation speech he delivered that year as Labour Leader. Education was something he brought to our attention, speaking to how “it liberates people. It levels the playing field between the rich and poor”. Little announced the fees free scheme, and it was not announced without financial literacy, either. According to Little “the money is there. The government has just earmarked it for tax cuts”.
The goal was not only to decrease student debt but to tackle the decline of tertiary enrolments. Under National from 2008 to 2017, the number of new university students had declined by 22%.
After handing over leadership to Jacinda Ardern, Labour won the election in 2017. Ardern stood by the policy, telling students “when you are trained and educated, that benefits all of us, and the New Zealand economy as a whole”.
Political to-and-fro
Controversy was not lost on the scheme. National was against the policy from the get-go, with then Education Minister Paul Goldsmith making the claim that it moved resources “to the sons and daughters of the richest New Zealanders who will go on to earn high incomes and can easily contribute to the cost of their education”.
People also questioned how effective the policy actually was at increasing enrolments. Studies showed that enrolment rates stayed relatively similar before and after the introduction of fees free, though Chris Hipkins disputed this in his time as Education Minister, saying that the policy “stabilised a steady decline” of enrolments.
Māori and Pacific Peoples were also shown to benefit from the fees free scheme, with “larger than average” increases in new fees free enrolments in 2023. Māori experienced the biggest increase out of any ethnic group.
A slight decline to a rapid fall
While Labour initially promised to work up to paying for three years if tertiary education, Chris Hipkins announced in 2021 that the government would only continue to pay for the first year of tertiary fees, and that resources would be “critical for the country’s recovery in the post-COVID environment”.
When National won the 2023 election, they changed tune on their initial criticism and decided to keep the fees free scheme. However, they changed the year in which students’ fees were paid from the first year to the final.
Why the change?
There’s irony in Winston Peters referring to the fees free scheme as “wasteful spending”. While it may be hard to envision a centrist Winston Peters now, New Zealand First chose to form a coalition with the sixth Labour Government in 2017, a decision made the year that the party was so heavily campaigning on a full fees free scheme.
Tertiary education spending is an investment. In a time during which student poverty is at an all-time high, many feel it is disingenuous to characterise students as coming from wealthy families.
The government initially campaigned on simply changing fees free to cover the final year of education, so why go back on that before even having completed a single term?
The bitter truth is that the budget is never a lolly scramble. Under a government that promises tax cuts, public investments are on the chopping block. In an election year, groups that are less likely to vote are the ones the government doesn’t feel the need to impress.
Making life harder for students is the obvious choice – we’re predominantly in the 18-24 age group, and as angry as we are about this change, only 54% of us are enrolled to vote. In comparison to 95.5% of 55-59 year olds, the Government does not see us as a stakeholder group.
The only solution is for us to become one.
We do that by becoming loud. Becoming angry. And, most importantly, becoming voters.
