Student loans, I'M PISSED OFF!!!!!!

[inlinefour]

Well I must say it good to see that most people can see though the BS.

It goes down with, was the car speeding? I did paint that. There are more,
but because its raining I'v been drinking and can not remember.

Maybe we should start a thread lies that PM's have said in the last 3 years.
And I do mean all parties and that would be interesting.
We the public forget so easily and quickly.

I am pretty sick of the kindygarten behaviours that go on in our Parliment. I thought they are all adults, but apparently I was wrong. I'm determined not to vote on Labour and I think the rest of them are just as big a bunch of arseholes. I don't forget and are pretty loyal until I feel that I'm being shat on. I used to support Holden, until recieving crap service and then being told that they are stopping making the Monaro. Their loss and Toyota's gain. I think I'll vote, but have no idea for whom.

[geoffm]

Regarding "free" education. When I did my BE, starting in 1987, the fees for that year were $130, and the bursury covered it. The student allowance was enough to live on if you were thrifty. I was paid $8-8.50/ hour doing engineering work in the holidays - take home around $250 a week
The following year in 1988, fees went up to $1300, and suddenly the money you saved from the holiday job was gone, and you still had books and living costs to go.
Fast foward to now, i am doing my ME. Fees are $4800, and likely to rise. I spent $2000 on books last year, with one at $500. This year is better, with one I bought yesterday a snip at $US200. A part time job was not an option last year - I was working 7 days a week. This year, being research based thesis, is a bit easier at 6 days a week... I get no student allowance, as I used it up 20 years ago - (would have been ok if I had done a 3 year Arts degree instead of a 4 year engineering one), however, I could have got the dole with no problems, and I wouldn't have to pay it back.
Geoff

[inlinefour]

Regarding "free" education. When I did my BE, starting in 1987, the fees for that year were $130, and the bursury covered it. The student allowance was enough to live on if you were thrifty. I was paid $8-8.50/ hour doing engineering work in the holidays - take home around $250 a week
The following year in 1988, fees went up to $1300, and suddenly the money you saved from the holiday job was gone, and you still had books and living costs to go.
Fast foward to now, i am doing my ME. Fees are $4800, and likely to rise. I spent $2000 on books last year, with one at $500. This year is better, with one I bought yesterday a snip at $US200. A part time job was not an option last year - I was working 7 days a week. This year, being research based thesis, is a bit easier at 6 days a week... I get no student allowance, as I used it up 20 years ago - (would have been ok if I had done a 3 year Arts degree instead of a 4 year engineering one), however, I could have got the dole with no problems, and I wouldn't have to pay it back.
Geoff

They would not let me go on that benefit as I was a full time student and the dole paid more!!!

[Milky]

Who are these students who had free education?

The student loan system is a big improvement over those days. Remember it isn't mandatory to take out a loan, students are still free to get a job while they study.

Me parents both went through uni and saved money while doing so. I think that was way back in the 70s though. They used to flat in Eden Crescent, and paid some ridiculously low sum for a weeks rent. How times have changed...

For myself - taking out a loan is the most sensible way to get through uni - the savings I have are earning me money, I can get $150 a week in living costs into a savings bank account, $1000 in Course Related Costs (just a quote from the local computer store for a laptop gets the money from the Student Loan Scheme, even if you don't spend it on the laptop in the end) and approximately $5500 on fees a year. That gives me somewhere around $10,000 per year to invest until I leave uni (In a best case scenario, ie I already have the cash to pay for Uni fees/books/C.R.Cs)
If I make the effort to work over the summer break - 8 odd weeks, I can earn enough to pay for base fees, and then grab a little part time work here or there throughout the year fund living. Admittedly I live at home and do not pay board, but this still indicates that students these days aren't as hard done by as some of us would like to have you think. I am finding it a little harder now, with FSAE taking up whatever time Uni doesn't take and more, but things could be much much worse.

What some fail to realise about the SLS, once it is transferred to IRD and you stop studying, there is a minimum repayment that is required based on the moooooooolah that you bring in each week. I imagine that the interest being removed from the loan balances would come hand in hand with an increase in this minimum repayment, so that average repayment times are not greatly different from what they are presently. It seems a sensible change anyway...

[justsomeguy]

What some fail to realise about the SLS, once it is transferred to IRD and you stop studying, there is a minimum repayment that is required based on the moooooooolah that you bring in each week. I imagine that the interest being removes from the loan balances would come hand in hand with an increase in this minimum repayment, so that average repayment times are not greatly different from what they are presently. It seems a sensible change anyway...

Yeah and that minimum payment is nicely measured so that your repayments sloooooooowly manage to finish paying off the increasing loan amount all that interest generates.... so you keep paying until you sloooooowly catch up (and pay heaps extra through interest) or you pay it off with bulk payments asap.

[Pixie]

When the labour HAGG token girlie Cullen spoke of the budget surplus being already allocated,he was being truthful after all.It was for buying votes.
As a taxpayer I object to paying for someone elses advancement.Especially the current results tertiary institutions are achieving,if spelling and grammar are any indication

[Gremlin]

As a taxpayer I object to paying for someone elses advancement.

I can understand your point, but most with an education help the world to go round (not saying you need to have a piece of paper to make the world go round), not saying its justified, but you do already support peoples advancement by paying your taxes.

Technically, the way I look at it is that the government is investing in my education to help the country. They subsidise fees to the tune of 70-80% (not 100% sure of figure), so if I piss off and pay the loan off from overseas, then the country loses. If I stay and pay off the loan then the country benefits from my skills.

The interest free is conditional on being in the country, so if a policy keeps grads in the country, then it has to help address skills shortages. National had the work of the loan scheme a couple of years back, but Labour slammed it as slavery...

[Drunken Monkey]

.... then it has to help address skills shortages.

That's the other load of bollocks the government is spouting. The skills shortage is in experienced professionals and tradespeople. Keeping graduates behind may help staff the health and education sectors, but the majority of students doing their BComs, BScs and BAs, fresh out of uni, aren't going to make any immediate difference to the skills shortage. Hell, give some ordinary yobbo a degree, suddenly thet think they're academic and 'above' doing work in the trades. Also, these 'leaving graduates' are only valuable to NZ after they've picked up some valuable work experience on their OE.

Stop forcing young, non-academically inclined people who don't fit in at schools from staying in school through to seventh form (now through 7th form AND tech/uni) and pissing about - these people were traditionally out of school, learning a trade and earning money - not stuck at a tertiary institution, leeching a student benefit (or building up a large loan), bumbling through an academic degree they're not suited too just because everyone else is doing it.

[placidfemme]

Just a random question... if they pass this new bill/law or whatever they calling it for Student Loans to have no interest, does that mean they will take off all the interest on current student loans (like mine)... or will it only come into affect for people taking out "new" student loans?

[Beemer]

It annoys me that each political party tries to bribe a sector of the voting public every election year without fail. And do the promises ever amount to anything? Rarely. And do the people fall for it each time? Always.

When I went nursing in 1986 I got a bursary and living expenses because I was away from home. I decided nursing wasn't for me and gave up during the first year and didn't pay back the money I had been loaned. Because of that, I didn't get any financial assistance for the next course when I returned to study. I did a 16-week course at my own expense, then went to polytech to do my journalism training. I didn't get any cheaper fares or anything because I was over 25, so I was paying bus and train fares every day just to get there, although I had moved back home so wasn't paying board. I ended up owing about $8,000 at the end of the year and it took me years to pay it back as journalists are notoriously poorly paid in their first jobs.

Even now, 10 years later, I don't earn a huge wage, although I am able to charge more for my services. I'd love to go back and do my photography training but I can't justify three years out of the market plus about $24,000 more in fees.

I don't think education should be free, but I do think it should be affordable, and I don't believe interest should be charged on loans to students.

[chickenfunkstar]

After reading some of the posts in this thread I'd almost got the impression that people thought that tertiary education was a bad thing.
Surely a better educated population benefits everyone in the long run.

I'd like to see tertiary education more accessable for everyone. I'd rather see some other action by the govt such as a universal student allowance and a reduction in fees, but at least interest free loans are something.

[chickenfunkstar]

Just a random question... if they pass this new bill/law or whatever they calling it for Student Loans to have no interest, does that mean they will take off all the interest on current student loans (like mine)... or will it only come into affect for people taking out "new" student loans?

I could be wrong, but I think its for everyone who has a student loan, not just 'new' loans.

[placidfemme]

I could be wrong, but I think its for everyone who has a student loan, not just 'new' loans.

Sweet thank you...

[ManDownUnder]

As a "sideways" perspective on it...


Is the removal of interest from the loans actually the problem? Or is it the fact the put interest on them to start with.

I personally think it is the latter - in which case removing it is the right thing to do.

That being said - I'm not voting Labour this year... but that is a policy I happen to agree with (says he who also went through the system, and worked my arse off to pay my whole student debt)

MDU

[Indiana_Jones]

No, it shouldn't. It lowers the standards as people are so PC these days they can't handle 'failing', then all we get is a big bunch of qualified know-nothings with worthless 'degrees'.
Education should be elitest.
New Zealand should be a technocracy.

rep on the way for that

ah, NCEA was bollocks, you don't fail, you "don't achieve"

And I feel there should be interest on student loans, maybe not huge, but it adds some personal reasponablity onto it, Something that seems to have gone in this PC world

-Indy