Jack Tame: First year free deserves to go

I never thought the previous government’s fees-free education policy made sense. 

I’m on the record from the get-go. I didn’t think it was a well-designed or considered policy. At an annual cost of hundreds of millions of dollars, the policy was expensive. I felt there were other priorities. The more cynically minded might even suggest that fast-tracking a fees-free education policy was a decision made with an impending election in mind, rather than the stated educational outcomes.  

The goals of the policy were to increase access for students from poorer backgrounds, Māori and Pasifika, and to improve educational outcomes. But short of a Scandanavian-style tax system, I actually thought New Zealand’s interest-free student loan scheme is pretty good. It strikes a fair balance and the barriers to access are low. And for every poorer student brought in by fees-free and who otherwise might have missed out on higher education, there were obviously dozens if not hundreds or thousands of middle-class kids who would’ve gone to university anyway, and now enjoyed an additional subsidy.  

Instead of a blanket fees-free policy, the previous government could have considered so many alternatives: 

- Increasing scholarships for students from poorer backgrounds, or for students from low-decile schools. 

- Re-introducing the 10% bulk payment incentive to student loans, whereby anyone who paid off more than $1000 in a voluntary payment, had ten percent of that payment matched by the government. 

- Means testing first year fees-free students. 

- Making the third year of an undergraduate degree fees-free, so students were incentivised to finish. 

- Greater assistance to students with cost-of-living support. 

Instead, although they held off making additional study years fees-free, the previous government stuck with their scheme. And the results have been damning.   

The total number of fees-free students has been decreasing. From the get-go, overall enrolments fell short of what was promised. Fees-free students have been dropping out. What’s more, the New Zealand Herald revealed over summer that the number of decile 1 first-year students has halved since the scheme began. The number of first year decile 10 students has increased by 40%. So much for improving access for students from poorer backgrounds.  

I was surprised National stuck with the scheme during the election campaign. But now at least, the government is moving to change the policy to make the final year fees-free, as per New Zealand First’s election policy.  

I note the Tertiary Education Commission acknowledged this week there was no discernible evidence the policy has increased access to low-socio economic groups. The policy has failed in its stated objectives. It’s a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have. It deserves to go. 

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