Heather du Plessis-Allan reflects on the end of the fees-free university policy, arguing it was a financial misstep that failed to increase enrolment among disadvantaged students and was overly costly, while suggesting future spending should be directed toward trade training.
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Okay, we're never going to know for sure what tipped the government into finally cutting the fees-free policy. But I would like to take some credit for this show's part in it, because we have harped on about the need to get rid of that policy so long it actually started to even get boring for me. But as with everything, persevere and you will succeed. And finally, the policy is gone. We had it confirmed by Winston Peters on Friday. Now I've already had emails from people who are upset about this. I've heard students complaining about this. I've heard some parents complaining about this. And and I understand, because it is never fun to have free government money taken away from you. And it is because of this kind of angst that free government money is so rarely taken away once it started to be handed out. But this policy was a dog from the start. It cost perhaps $350 million a year. $350 million a year is a lot of money. And for that money, it didn't do what it was supposed to do, which was to lift enrollments from poorer kids. Which means if it didn't do what it was supposed to do, if the kids were going to go to uni anyway and were still going to uni, then all we were doing was wasting $350 million. And to the people worrying about students living in poverty or unable to afford to study, please remember we taxpayers already subsidise about 70% of what it costs Kiwi kids to go to university. We already provide interest-free student loans. It is already globally relatively cheap to go to university here. You could argue that our system in this country for university study is already so good that even when we made it more generous, it didn't lift enrollments. It's already generous enough. Now, I'm not going to I I am rather, so I am going to withhold judgment on Nicola and Winston and what the plan is from here on in. Because they are typically for this government saving money only to spend it again. They're going to take some of the money and they're going to spend it on trades trading. Now that might be a good idea, but then again, it might also be the same kind of slop as fees free just in a more worthy place. We'll see. But for the cutting of Jacinda's wasteful and pointless free year of study, RIP, and may we be more careful with our spending in the future.
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failed to increase access for poorer students
Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: I'd like to take some credit for the end of fees-freeSocial-media signal on the same topic, drawn from the social lens. Engagement is likes + 2×shares + 3×replies, the same weighting used across the digest cards. View on /social →
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