Chloe Swarbrick was in the news quite a bit last week (for example, here), as the Green Party released their People's Inquiry into Student Wellbeing report (which you can find here). Swarbrick also had an op-ed in the New Zealand Herald, which was quite hilarious for the way she called out her parliamentary colleagues:
In mid-2001, then-Victoria University of Wellington Student Association president sent out a press release titled "Student debt set to cripple NZ". Figures had been released under the Official Information Act showing government estimates for student loan debt had nearly doubled from a 1999 projection of hitting $11.6 billion in 2020 to $19.4b.
The association's president lamented: "The current generation of politicians are mortgaging the future of our country. The burden of this will not only be felt by students who graduate with large debts, but also by the future taxpayers of New Zealand who will be left to clean up the mess ... If we are to get this debt under control, fees must come down and access to living allowances will have to increase."
Twenty years later, VUWSA president Chris Hipkins would become the Minister of Education. In the year 2020, student loan debt would sit between those two historical projections, at $16.1b.
In the final budget of his first ministerial term, the former student advocate would break Labour's election promise of reinstating post-graduate student allowance and extending fees-free education, citing the need to tighten the fiscal belt while the Government signed off an historical budget nearly 10 times bigger and tens of billions of dollars larger than they planned to spend pre-Covid. Almost 10 years before that press release, in 1993, the president of Otago University Students' Association told The Dominion newspaper: "Phasing out tuition fees and returning to universal living allowances would allow a better, more balanced diet [than two-minute noodles] ... Allowances should not be means tested against parental income, overall funding should be improved and more money should be available for students with disabilities and dependants."
In 1996, that former OUSA president would go on to be elected as co-president of the NZ Union of Student Associations, penning an opinion editorial noting: "Only 37 per cent of full-time students get any kind of allowance ... The main culprit here is the National Government's absurd means-testing programme."
Around 30 years later, the Honorable Grant Robertson would be elected with Labour colleagues in the strongest Parliamentary majority in MMP's history, commanding 65 of the House's 120 seats. Just 61 of those votes are needed to pass a Budget – the same number held by the National-NZ First coalition Government that Robertson once railed against.
NZUSA president Robertson of 1996 was worried that just 37 per cent of full-time students were getting any kind of allowance. In 2021, it was even fewer, at 27 per cent. He was concerned specifically about students being means tested on their parents' combined gross income until they were 25 years old. That rule remains in place to this day.
While the calling out of Hipkins and Robertson for the political expediency made me chuckle, the report itself makes for grim reading. The report is based on over 4500 responses from tertiary students, mostly from universities, and with Victoria University in particular heavily over-represented. I guess Wellington-based students really had some things to get off their chest. Nevertheless, the report tells a story of students who are insufficiently supported, most importantly financially and in terms of their mental health. Regardless of whether you look at the summarised survey responses, or the extended quotes from students, it is difficult to conclude anything other than that there has been a longstanding and systematic failure of successive governments to adequately support students. Indeed, support in real terms has been progressively withdrawn:
Comparing the student allowance payments in 2021 to what was available in 1999 shows that amount paid has not kept pace with the increased costs of living. In 1999, the average amount of student allowance paid to each student was $4,420. In 2021, it was $6,641. Adjusted for inflation, the 1999 value equates to approximately $8265 in 2021. This means students in 2021 were about $1600 worse off than their counterparts in 1999...
Yikes, that is a huge reduction. It's little wonder that we find ourselves in a situation where students cannot concentrate their efforts adequately on their studies. When students report not only that they take on extra work shifts rather than studying, but that they cannot afford the costs of travelling to campus on some days, then something is seriously wrong. The opportunity cost of time spent studying should not be having enough money to eat. As I have pointed out before (see here and here), we can and should do better at supporting students. I particularly agree with this bit from the conclusion of the report:
...the cost of living and higher education and students’ living conditions make it difficult for many students to be at their best and reach their learning potential. If students were not doing it so hard, New Zealand may benefit from better tertiary education outcomes. A respondent put it like this,
We need to stop treating students like they're parasitic for needing help while they better themselves. Students aren't the only ones who benefit when it is made easy for them to focus on their education.
The main thing missing from the report is that this point, that students are the future, was not made more forcefully. The report makes a number of recommendations:
1. Help students meet their day-to-day costs of living and relieve the burden of longer-term debt, by:
a. Making student allowances open to all (scrap parent and partner income testing, exclusion of graduate students, and age limits)
b. Lifting the student allowance payments to match the cost of living and meet the needs of different equity groups
c. Stop basing the amount of allowance students are entitled to based on how much they earn in their part-time employment.
2. Work with tertiary education and student accommodation providers to embed the Pastoral Care of Tertiary and International Students Code of Practice 2021
3. Improve the accessibility and capacity of student mental health services
4. Make public transport free for tertiary students
5. Progress the Rental Warrant of Fitness and Rent Control proposals.
I agree with Recommendations 1(a) and 1(b), and in fact I think that 1(b) doesn't go far enough. In my view, a starting point for the student allowance should be an amount equal to the full-time minimum wage. I'm agnostic on Recommendation 1(c). I would like to see no means testing, but an attendance test - if students draw a student allowance, they should be attending class, and if not, then no allowance.
Recommendations 2 and 3 are no-brainers. We should be doing those already. I think if we do a better job on Recommendation 1, and students are adequately supported financially, then Recommendation 4 isn't needed. As for Recommendation 5, the Rental Warrant of Fitness seems like a good idea irrespective of whether it applies to students. However, we absolutely should not have rent controls. To even consider rent control seriously is a failure of economic literacy and a failure to learn from the experiences of San Francisco, Stockholm, and Mumbai, not to mention dozens of other cities where they have been employed.
We can (and should) provide more support for tertiary students, especially financial support and support for mental health. If we get the support right, then we won't need to resort to crazy fixes like rent control.
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