Students at Massey University will be hit hard with the maximum possible tuition fee increase in 2011, as well as increased student services levies, a new scholarship levy, and increased enrolment fees.

update listen to more on Checkpoint here, including interview with EXMSS President Ralph Springett.

Massey recently approved a 4 percent increase in tuition fees for graduate and undergraduate students. It also approved a 47.5 percent average increase in the student services levy; this follows the 100 percent increase in 2010. The announced increases, including the October GST increase, mean that on average full-time students will pay 10 percent extra to study at Massey next year.

Student services levies for full time internal students will range from $150.00 to a maximum of $325.00 as the per-paper levy will be $25.00 on top of a $150 base rate. Extramural students will face up to a 300 percent increase in the levy, as the base fee will be the current $60.00 levy plus $15.00 per paper taken. This adjustment is to pay for more projects around supporting students, as funding is now linked to success and completion.

The scholarship levy, at $2.50 per 15 credit paper, will also have students involved in the way the funds are distributed. This levy will amount to about $350,000 annually.

Enrolment fees will nearly double – from $40.00 to $75.00 and will be non-refundable. These increases will hit students hard. These increases appear to be due to government policies allowing universities to use student levies as a way of increasing fees beyond the fees course costs maxima.

Finally, a new withdrawal fee of $75.00 has been introduced for domestic students who withdraw from all papers following confirmation of enrolment but prior to completing 10 per cent of the first paper in which they enrolled. Previously a non-refundable enrolment fee was charged.

Canterbury University is also increasing fees as high as it can, after a 627% increase in the student service levy this year.

Steven Joyce wants students to finish their degrees quicker. If they don’t finish them in six or seven years, well, they can fund the degree themselves as they won’t be able to get a student loan. He appears to be blaming students for dragging the chain because student loans are interest free.

It’s unclear whether “student loan” means for course costs ( I assume so) as well as living costs, and if so, that will cause problems, particularly for extramural students who work while studying – and may, for example, do a few papers a year and finish the last year off full time. If a student takes two or three papers a year, completing 16 papers in say six years, and decides to do the last eight papers as a full time student, they won’t be able to get a student loan if the limit is six years, nor will they be able to get a student loan for course costs in the last year if they complete the final eight papers over two years.

What happens if a student – particularly an extramural student – wants to have a break in studying for a year because their job is going well or they want to have a year off to concentrate on, say, raising a newborn child? Additionally, each extramural student costs less money and time than internal students, as they don’t go to lecturers or tutorials, and use campus facilities a lot less.

It took me six years to do my degree (including honours) but that was only because I did the last three years full time, passed all my papers, and did not have any years in between where I took no papers at all. Most extramural students ( which I was) don’t study full time for three years running. Sure, students who work may not take up loans for living costs, but they have to pay for course costs and books somehow.

If I was a lifetime student, I’d just do another degree and do it within six years. Then do another one. I’d have three degrees in the time that Steven Joyce took to do his degree in zoology, a degree he has said he has never used.

Unlike him I will be using mine. I start a new job next Monday.
UPDATE Just had a chat to the Minister’s office – apparently the proposal is for effective full time students (EFTS), meaning that this will not affect extramural students who gradually complete their degrees, unless they are an EFTS for at least six years. Good.

The bill promoting VSM ( voluntary student association membership) is currently before a parliamentary select committee; submissions to the select committee are due at the end of the month. Although there has been a bit of mud slinging and website creating (for example Free Me and Save our Services ) on both sides of the debate, I expect things to hinge around whether current provisions of the Education Act infringe the right not to be forced to join an association and, if they do, whether that infringement is justified in a free and democratic society.

Yet, if Parliament decides that compulsory student membership relates to concerns which are pressing and substantial, is rationally connected to its intended purpose and is a proportional response to those concerns or is the least possible impairment of rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, this would mean that compulsory student membership does not breach section 5 of the Bill of Rights; this position is supported by case law.

Consequently as this will satisfy the demonstrable justification under section 5, in that any limitation of a right or freedom is demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society, this means that services and representation are substantial enough for compulsory membership of students’ associations to be retained in law, with a democratic mechanism should students in a given tertiary institution decide otherwise.

Meaning this bill is not needed to fix up rights under the Bill of Rights. e All this bil ldoes is satisfies ACT ideology. And most students didn’t vote for ACT.

As a side issue, one raised concern in the current legislation is that any conscientious objections ( where students can object to student association membership) is that their membership fee is not refunded as it is paid to a charity. This appears to be designed to limit applications for exemptions. In addition, the current bill has no provision for referenda, as it individualises collective representation.

There is no way a student could access the services and representation provided by EXMSS for a $40 annual cost ( which is what Massey extramural students pay) if they were forced to look elsewhere.

What do you think?

Currently any student who gets a student loan doesn’t have to pay interest, nor do they have to pay it back unless they are earning over$19,084 a year. But the government wants to change the student loans scheme. The NZ union of students’ associations called on the government to commit to providing interest -free student loans

So it did.Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said

We’re going to keep the student loan interest-free, but then we’re going to look at other requirements around those student loans. “The simple point is, if you don’t pay interest on any loan – forget student loans for a second – then there is less incentive to pay it back than if you do pay interest.

So what changes will be made?

Here are some options:

Fewer people will be entitled to interest free student loans.Non achievers at a school, for example. For those who fail first year papers, not only will you be unable to get a student allowance, you may not be allowed to resit the papers, even if you pay for the fees upfront.

Two: the cap were you have to pay student loans may be reduced. Three: you may have to make repayments even if you are studying full time. Currently you can make bulk repayments of at least $500 and get a 10% discount. This in effect means that if you pay off $1000 in one hit, you`ll shave off most of the amount for a year’s student association membership for most universities. But if the earnings threshold is lowered, some students who earn the equivalent of a student allowance will have to make loan repayments. Perhaps the government will introduce repayments while studying. If so, some who get the student allowance will have to repay money back while studying – and if they don’t get a job immediately after studying, there will be no reason while beneficiaries will not be forced to pay off their student loans through benefit income.

It is clear that the government wants more people to pay more of their student loan at a faster rate. To lower the existing rate of student loan debt, it must be paid off faster than the dollar value of future applications. I would not be surprised if the government restricts future applications and mandates quicker loan repayments at the same time – putting the squeeze on students and graduates.

This may be of interest: Ann Tolley makes an announcement with a media release: “$8 million boost for high-performing polytechnics”

Tertiary Education Minister Anne Tolley has announced that 12 polytechnics and institutes of technology are to provide up to 700 new student places following an $8 million funding boost.”This additional funding for 2010, part of the Government’s Youth Opportunities package, will help these institutions cope with forecast enrolment growth”

Looks like the government is announcing new funding. But it is not new funding. Tolley made a similar announcement in August.

This one-off funding will be available to deal with expected increases in student enrolments in 2010 resulting from the impact of the economic downturn on youth employment opportunities

It wouldn’t have taken very long to write the new media release I`m sure. Just change “one-off funding” to “additional funding”, to make it look like a one-off announcement of additional funding for polytechs that are not as high performing as they were initally made out to be – but still have caps on student numbers.

Hello everyone, this is my first post on here, we`ll see how this goes…. I also have another blog at Big News, check it out. It’s on current events and politics. Oh, and in case you haven’t already guessed,I rather like coffee.