Aidan Donoghue: Victoria University's Student Association spokesperson on student hardship

Concern tertiary students are having to choose extra work over studying - to keep up with increased living costs.

More than 34-million-dollars in hardship funds has been given out by institutions since 2020.

Victoria University's Student Association spokesperson, Aidan Donoghue, says things haven't improved much since Covid.

He told Andrew Dickens they received 940 applications for their Winter Energy Grant this year, compared to 265 two years ago.

Donoghue says every application is limited to one address - so that's 940 households.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tertiary institutions have dissed out thirty four million dollars in
hardship funding since COVID. The peak was in twenty twenty one,
where they gave away nearly nine million dollars. They gave
away just under six million last year. So Aidan Donahue
is Wellington's Victoria University Students Association Engagement Vice President and
is up early for us good morning to aiden good morning.

(00:21):
Why are the students having to get the grants?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
Look beginning the grants because they're obviously in need of
extra money, and most of that we're seeing is in
regards to MG costs and other sort of financial stresses
like that.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
So let's look at the money. Aut says it's average
amount of assistants last year four hundred and fifty bucks.
Canterby University provides up to eight hundred dollars through its
students Association. So how much are the students really relying
on these grants?

Speaker 2 (00:51):
Many students I've really looked to these grants to really
get biasedpecially when unexpected costs occurred. It's really just tough.
It can really be a wide variety of things that
need a toyship grunts for.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Okay, So, and what impact is this lack of money
and the cost of living crisis having on students studying.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
It's an immense impact. I mean, every hour that's worked
to make up that loss and money is an hour
that's not spent studying. And so for students, it's a
really tough decision between working those extra hours or spending
that extra time on a better assignment or better you know,
engagement with the content of the course.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Things obviously got tough during COVID. Are things getting better now?

Speaker 2 (01:40):
Unfortunately? No. I'm from our winter energy grants which closed
in August. We've seen that the number of submissions received
from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty five is about tripled,
from about two hundred and sixty five applications in twenty
twenty three to nine hundred and forty applications in twenty
twenty five. And yeah, just to put those own perspective,

(02:01):
every application is limited to one per address, and so
that's nine hundred and forty households looking for extra support
during these times during winter.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
All right, Well, we wish them all the best of luck,
and I thank you so much. Adam Donahue from the
Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. He's the Engagement Vice
president for more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
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