Like the Balloons over Waikato...So are student loans.
(Reposted 17/06/08 with amendments.)
So...Student loan debt has reached the 10 billion dollar mark. Again, with the passing of another milestone, we find that some student association leaders are barking about how hard it is and all the 'wo-is-me' life is so hard business and that students lives are being impacted on because of their loans. Get a life please!!!
I for one am thankful for a system such as this. It is unfortunate that when I first started studying that student loans were not as restricted as they were. A whole lot could be claimed for course related costs to a point where one could claim for a trip overseas, a new car, stereo's. A loan for a year could stack up beyond what was needed, and so someone who would need a $10,000 loan for a year, could end up trippling that or more.
With the changes that came to the loan system, course related costs maxing out at $1,000 a year, being able to take living costs of no more than $150 a week, loan uptake can be minimised to the things that are needed as opposed to the things that are wanted.
However, the items of student loans are only one of many issues that has caused what is the core of the issue, the $10 billion mark of student debt.
Institutions in most cases are charging far to much for simple programmes. For example, there are classes in polytechnics that are charging thousands of dollars for a programme that is in another institution free of charge. This charge comes after the institution receives funding from the government for each student attending. With TEC's new funding programme its now based on the number of students who graduate with qualifications that earn the funding, rather just based on the bums on seats scheme of yesteryear.
In some types of programmes, like the arts, this funding is significantly larger. But the fee that I as a student pay to my insitution is a fee paid to them in addition to the money they get from the government for (a) running the course and (b) having me as a student on their lists. So if they get $5,000* for having me this year, and I am paying $2,500 their total funding relating to me as a student total $7,500. Multiply that by your average class number of 35, thats $262,500 to run a course...and of course, the more people on that course, the more funding gained. (* a rough average for a full time EFTS not based on programme).
Fees no doubt are high...its a fact of life though. You want to be a doctor, the small specialised equipment is not cheap like scalples etc, resources need to be maintained, and by resources I would include the dead human ones need to be stored in specialised equipment, which again is not cheap. Obviously you are paying for the lecturers and support staff. The institution has to function. So I don't gripe too much about the fees I pay, though I do wonder sometimes the amount of work the lecturers don't do, and leave to other students to do for them at times makes me wonder about their salary levels.
What I have issues with? The Undie 500. Hundreds of students, moaning about their lot in life, while slugging back dozens of bottles of booze, sucking back dope, and moaning that they cant study through hangover, and they can't buy food because they are too poor, and yet, likely spent $200 of course related costs from their loan on boxes of booze. Granted this is a select few of students, but it does tend to paint the whole canvas at once when they say University students ran amock around town, caused damage and rioted...remembering I'm a university student, albeit extramural.
Breakfast spoke to NZ Union of Students' Associations Co-President Liz Hawes about what students want to help reverse their collective debt of $10 billion and I have to say I was not impressed with what her ideas were. Tell you what, her suggestion that the student loan system should not even exist is stupid to say the least. If that were the case, I'd be working and saving for years before I could even get into a degree programme. I believe that it has its place...but it does need to be managed better. To be honest, the government may have created the student loan scheme, but students abused it and bolted. To say the government created the problem is like blaming God for creating the world then not holding Adam and Eve accountable for eating the fruit they were told not to eat, which started all the problems we face today.
I do not believe that the only reason our students are leaving the country is the loan debts. I think the fact that a graduate leaves the country is that they can get paid more. Which I think is true. So...there are two things we can do if we want to stop that happening. We link the IRD, Studylink and immigration computers together preventing anyone with any long term plans of exit from leaving for more than three months if they have a student loan debt over a certain amount. Hey...maybe thats another government policy for my party to work on when we work on getting into government.
Anyways, Co-President Hawes, get over yourself. Students need to take responsibility for their lives. If they can spend bucks on booze, they can spend money on where it needs to go...their education...rather than their off campus lives. Todays world the complaint is too much about rights and not enough about responsibility. Students who aren't taking care of their own lives probably need to spend more time in the class room, and less time over buckets and dealing with hangovers.
As a Prime Minister I would certainly look at these problem areas, however, require real world solutions to the problem. What self respecting government today would write off 10 billion dollars of debt, in order to satisfy 'some' of the country. Imagine. If everyone who had a student loan paid it off, and that 10 billion was injected back into the Education sector...IMAGINE...what that could do...more programmes, more classes, more graduates? More contribution to society? More scholarships for students who earned them, thus making it unnecessary to take a student loan? I would not write them off, but I would certainly make in-roads into making it easier, and offer incentives to in-class performance. Maybe if a student who took a loan, and maintained a certain grade was given a post study scholarship to pay off a % of their loan at graduation, in return for remaining in the country and working here and paying off their loan? What a novel idea.
Anyways...thats my blog.
So...Student loan debt has reached the 10 billion dollar mark. Again, with the passing of another milestone, we find that some student association leaders are barking about how hard it is and all the 'wo-is-me' life is so hard business and that students lives are being impacted on because of their loans. Get a life please!!!
I for one am thankful for a system such as this. It is unfortunate that when I first started studying that student loans were not as restricted as they were. A whole lot could be claimed for course related costs to a point where one could claim for a trip overseas, a new car, stereo's. A loan for a year could stack up beyond what was needed, and so someone who would need a $10,000 loan for a year, could end up trippling that or more.
With the changes that came to the loan system, course related costs maxing out at $1,000 a year, being able to take living costs of no more than $150 a week, loan uptake can be minimised to the things that are needed as opposed to the things that are wanted.
However, the items of student loans are only one of many issues that has caused what is the core of the issue, the $10 billion mark of student debt.
Institutions in most cases are charging far to much for simple programmes. For example, there are classes in polytechnics that are charging thousands of dollars for a programme that is in another institution free of charge. This charge comes after the institution receives funding from the government for each student attending. With TEC's new funding programme its now based on the number of students who graduate with qualifications that earn the funding, rather just based on the bums on seats scheme of yesteryear.
In some types of programmes, like the arts, this funding is significantly larger. But the fee that I as a student pay to my insitution is a fee paid to them in addition to the money they get from the government for (a) running the course and (b) having me as a student on their lists. So if they get $5,000* for having me this year, and I am paying $2,500 their total funding relating to me as a student total $7,500. Multiply that by your average class number of 35, thats $262,500 to run a course...and of course, the more people on that course, the more funding gained. (* a rough average for a full time EFTS not based on programme).
Fees no doubt are high...its a fact of life though. You want to be a doctor, the small specialised equipment is not cheap like scalples etc, resources need to be maintained, and by resources I would include the dead human ones need to be stored in specialised equipment, which again is not cheap. Obviously you are paying for the lecturers and support staff. The institution has to function. So I don't gripe too much about the fees I pay, though I do wonder sometimes the amount of work the lecturers don't do, and leave to other students to do for them at times makes me wonder about their salary levels.
What I have issues with? The Undie 500. Hundreds of students, moaning about their lot in life, while slugging back dozens of bottles of booze, sucking back dope, and moaning that they cant study through hangover, and they can't buy food because they are too poor, and yet, likely spent $200 of course related costs from their loan on boxes of booze. Granted this is a select few of students, but it does tend to paint the whole canvas at once when they say University students ran amock around town, caused damage and rioted...remembering I'm a university student, albeit extramural.
Breakfast spoke to NZ Union of Students' Associations Co-President Liz Hawes about what students want to help reverse their collective debt of $10 billion and I have to say I was not impressed with what her ideas were. Tell you what, her suggestion that the student loan system should not even exist is stupid to say the least. If that were the case, I'd be working and saving for years before I could even get into a degree programme. I believe that it has its place...but it does need to be managed better. To be honest, the government may have created the student loan scheme, but students abused it and bolted. To say the government created the problem is like blaming God for creating the world then not holding Adam and Eve accountable for eating the fruit they were told not to eat, which started all the problems we face today.
I do not believe that the only reason our students are leaving the country is the loan debts. I think the fact that a graduate leaves the country is that they can get paid more. Which I think is true. So...there are two things we can do if we want to stop that happening. We link the IRD, Studylink and immigration computers together preventing anyone with any long term plans of exit from leaving for more than three months if they have a student loan debt over a certain amount. Hey...maybe thats another government policy for my party to work on when we work on getting into government.
Anyways, Co-President Hawes, get over yourself. Students need to take responsibility for their lives. If they can spend bucks on booze, they can spend money on where it needs to go...their education...rather than their off campus lives. Todays world the complaint is too much about rights and not enough about responsibility. Students who aren't taking care of their own lives probably need to spend more time in the class room, and less time over buckets and dealing with hangovers.
As a Prime Minister I would certainly look at these problem areas, however, require real world solutions to the problem. What self respecting government today would write off 10 billion dollars of debt, in order to satisfy 'some' of the country. Imagine. If everyone who had a student loan paid it off, and that 10 billion was injected back into the Education sector...IMAGINE...what that could do...more programmes, more classes, more graduates? More contribution to society? More scholarships for students who earned them, thus making it unnecessary to take a student loan? I would not write them off, but I would certainly make in-roads into making it easier, and offer incentives to in-class performance. Maybe if a student who took a loan, and maintained a certain grade was given a post study scholarship to pay off a % of their loan at graduation, in return for remaining in the country and working here and paying off their loan? What a novel idea.
Anyways...thats my blog.
Labels: Student Loans.
posted by Wiremu Bayliss at
4:02 pm
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