EXMSS Vice-President's Blog

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce has admitted that he has practically reversed National’s tax cuts for the average family – as most average families have student loans.

The Government will not only reduce many workers pay packets, but also students’ allowances and their take home pay. Those with student loans – including current earning Massey students – will soon have to pay 12 cents in every dollar earned above $19,000 towards their student loan. That’s on top of ACC levies, Kiwi Saver payments, and income tax.

NZUSA President Pete Hodkinson, says it is outrageous that graduates could pay higher taxes to pay for a budget shortfall caused by the tax cuts that National gave to high- income earners.

Some students are sole parents. Anything a sole parent earns over $100 gross a week, or just under 8 hours at the minimum wage, currently gives a sole parent with a student loan only $40 in the hand. When the rate of student loan repayment increases to 15 per cent; the last $25 earned will actually make the sole parent worse off. They will be taxed more than they actually earn for the last two hours of work. Did you know that? No, didn’t think so.

In Australia you don’t have to pay off your loan until you earn $48,000 – and at only 4 per cent rising to 8 per cent as incomes rise.

What is important is that this announcement flies in the face of the governments Tertiary Education Strategy, which focuses on students competing degrees in three years. Obviously part time students can’t do that, but what they can do is work while studying (if they can get jobs) and avoid collecting the student allowance. As the student allowance will only be available to a student for four years, it will mean that postgraduate students won’t be able to get a student allowance to complete a Masters degree if they have used their allowance up as an undergraduate. They`ll have to borrow to live. So some postgraduate students may revert to part time study, which will mean more and more students will complete degrees more slowly, which the government doesn’t really want.

The Government has also wasted $12 million a year paying officials to run a scheme where students who pay more than the minimum get a 10 per cent discount in their loan repayments. Apparently some – but nowhere near enough – are doing so. Why would students or former students *do* this if they had the money when they can make more with compounding interest by saving the money? This scheme will stay until March – no doubt costing millions more in the hope that some gullible loan-holders will cough up cash to get a “discount” on their loan.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce wants to pay less money to students in student allowances. Full time students 25 and under qualify for a full student allowance if their parents’ combined income is less than 55,026, or in part if their parents’ combined income is less than $83,449.01 for students who live at home, or $90,554.74 for students who do not live at home. Those over 25 are not subject to parental income thresholds and collect the student allowance, living frugally, to avoid taking out a loan for living costs.

There are two main reasons students get allowances: Many can’t get jobs to supplement their study; others who have completed study can’t get jobs so they go back to university but can’t get part time work so they also get the allowance.

They also get course related costs. Part time students – including a high proportion of EXMSS members and extramural students – are not eligible for student allowances, nor are they eligible for course related costs.

The government wants to reduce the amount paid in allowances as well as the amount students pay in compulsory course costs. the threshold for parental income has been frozen and access to study is increasingly difficult. Student fees are rising to cover inflation as well as government cuts. The government wants to stop this, by capping the price rises that institutions can place on student fees while inadequately funding these institutions – while at the same time, reducing the number of students that qualify for allowances. It also wants to introduce interest on student loans but is too scared of losing the next election as a result.

For some students this means that they will pay a little less in course costs, but receive way less in allowances ( like, nothing), and could mean that some decide not to continue studying. The government doesn’t want students to be a drain on the taxpayer – it would rather these people be a drain on the taxpayer collecting the dole. And that makes as much sense as cutting course related costs from part time students.

Part-time students are the least supported group of students in New Zealand, while being the smallest drain on the taxpayer. They work, pay taxes, pay off student loans while studying, and are more likely to stay in New Zealand when they graduate because they already have a job.

The government wants you to study. Its way. Full time, with special attention if you are young and Maori. Preferably in a course that will get you a job. In New Zealand. On a high tax rate. Immediately after your study finishes. So don’t study Zoology. You can get a student loan – and if the Treasury gets its way, you’ll be paying interest on that loan.

You really have to wonder, in its Briefing to the Incoming Minister(BIM) released today , why Treasury bothered to recommend reintroduction of interest on student loans when the Finance Minister rejects it the day the briefings become public. In its BIM, Treasury also recommended “greater targeting towards younger tertiary students, and higher-level qualifications.”

Briefings by the Tertiary Education Commission and the Ministry of Education ( Also here) were released today also. It is clear that the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), through the government’s Tertiary Education Strategy, is focussing on outcomes to increasingly drive behaviour and influence students away from part time and extramural study – and towards vocational rather than academic study. The TEC also states that enabling Maori and Pacific students to succeed at higher levels is critical to improving their economic and social wellbeing, yet many of those students are not part of the target group, that is, those who are school leavers and want to study full time.

One of the main challenges in tertiary education internationally is finding the balance between governmental steering and institutional autonomy in governance arrangements that respond to external expectations and our Government has yet to get that right. Resource constraints inevitably lead to tradeoffs and older students who want to study part time are being traded off. Other students are missing out altogether as the tertiary sector is so underfunded that it cannot respond to the demands of students. This results in perverse incentives that limit access to priority learner groups such as Maori and Pacific Islanders.

The Ministry of Education, in its briefing, noted that it is important to maintain entry to high-quality tertiary education options for second chance learners – but these are not adults who are retraining, be it part time or full time, these learner s are defined as ‘learners who have fallen out of the education system without gaining a meaningful qualification, or core literacy and numeracy skills – i.e. people who will struggle in doing a degree and instead go to lower level tertiary education, and come out of that wanting to do a degree because they can’t get a job with their new qualification.

The Ministry also noted that there is a risk that a focus on performance at provider level provides relatively weak incentives for providers to improve completion, retention and progression rates for priority groups. It may instead adversely affect tertiary education organisation serving a higher proportion of Maori and Pasifika learners, or encourage provider to make admissions criteria more restrictive, limiting access to learners – such as extramural students – perceived to be high risk.

Which is exactly what Massey is doing at the moment – it is forced to limit the number of part time extramural students – including students from from priority areas – as the focus is on full time youth. While the Ministry of Education says that limited access is a risk, it is not a big deal for the Tertiary Education Commission, who, through the governments Tertiary Education Strategy, forces institutions like Massey to limit access to tertiary education for target groups through disincentivising or limiting enrolments of these learners.

Meaning if you are older, whiter and part time, you may be out of luck when you next try to enrol.

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce has told students to keep their heads down and stop protesting against the government because they have a relatively privileged position in tough economic times. Perhaps he told National list MP Michael Woodhouse to keep his head down and vote against his conscience after he supported the EXMSS select committee submission to a bill on voluntary membership of students’ associations. In particular Woodhouse suggests that Labour should promote the ‘opt out’ compromise solution. It was such a good idea that our submission included it.

Its not such a good idea now, since Woodhouse has either been told to keep his head down or pull his head in, and vote against what he believes is right. [See video < here]

The government has been told that its legislation on student association membership – and in effect it is its legislation, as had it not passed its third reading this week the government would have adopted it – is unworkable for small students’ associations, particularly those in Polytechnics.

One institution, the Nelson-Marlborough Institute of Technology – has 39 different programme start dates over 16 different campuses. While the institution will be able to collect association fees and invoice the students’ association for actual and reasonable costs incurred in collecting membership fees, this would mean that it would be uneconomical to attract students to membership. This will disadvantage students, particularly those who study part time, or those who are on short courses, as they will have no access to independent advocacy and support.

Students who pay association fees via a student loan will only be able to do it with their course –related costs. Part time students will not be eligible for course related costs from 2013.

The legislation is interfering with enrollment processes as it is due to kick in on 1 January 2012. At Massey, enrollments open the week after the bill is set down for a final reading. It is possible it won’t get read on that date if the government calls urgency and swallows a member’s day. It is now not possible to call for student association members through the normal enrollment process. It could be argued that students are being coerced not to join an association as parliament is interfering with this process. As the bill has not yet been passed, fee setting is a nightmare and has affected any potential service level agreements.

Even if one is to support voluntary membership of students’ associations, most rational people would acknowledge that implementation, in terms of fee setting, good service provision, advocacy and support to students, is problematic.

But when ideology clouds rationality in politics, common sense goes out the window. In an ideological debate where proposed legislation would detrimentally affect a group of people, that group is completely shut out of any discussions in matters that affect them.

Last night ACT MP Heather Roy took part in a parliamentary debate of her bill to gut student’s associations, making membership of students’ associations voluntary. She accused NZUSA of not getting back to her with a proposal to address some of the nutty things in her bill, after NZUSA initially said they would. I have spoken with the NZUSA co-president who assures me that they did get back to Roy, but she did not get back to them with a response.

In addition, I phoned Mrs Roy, and left a message on her cellphone some weeks ago. Guess what – she never got back to me either. She didn’t say that in parliament, though.

Roy has noticed that Te Mana Akonga, the Maori Students’ Association, has lodged a claim with the Waitangi Tribunal over the injustices in her bill. (which you can read here [PDF]). While she correctly noted that ordinarily, the Waitangi Tribunal has no jurisdiction over bills, Parliament can have a bill referred to the Tribunal. I suspect that was what the Maori Party was trying to do.

Roy also mentioned that membership of Maori students associations is voluntary, implying that all parties to the claim were associations that have voluntary membership – and she said implied that they were not “official” students’ associations and could not be recognised by law. She is wrong. If she had have looked at the claim she would have seen that the claim is lodged on behalf of all Maori students, the majority of whom are members of students associations and are not surviving by voluntary membership.

It is not just Maori students’ associations that are parties to the claim – most students being represented in the claim are not with associations that have voluntary membership. EXMSS was one of the parties to the claim and has more members than ACT – perhaps that’s because membership of ACT is voluntary and not as many people want to pay to join.

EXMSS does not have voluntary membership, but it does have thousands of Maori students – more Maori students than ACT has members. EXMSS is an official students’ association – in fact, of the parties to the claim that has the most Maori members. Roy says if she was a Maori student she would be embracing the proposed freedom from mainstream associations to enhance their national body.

It is pretty clear that Heather Roy either just wants to Maori-bash, or does not wish to understand Maori student politics. Accessing education “as Maori” is irrelevant to her.

Perhaps if she’d return my phone call, I could explain. Even If I did explain, and even if she was to get back to NZUSA, I guess it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference. Heather Roy won’t turn back now, even if she believes she has done the wrong thing.

And while I`m here perhaps I`ll have to fisk this – perhaps later on tonight.

I had an article in today’s NZ Herald on new laws on student services levies and membership of students’ associations.

You can read it here. Feel free to make comments over at the Herald.

Labour leader Phil Goff has said that Labour’s forthcoming tertiary education policy will depend on the extent to which it thinks National will ignore its own policy on interest-free student loans if ( as is likely) it wins the election. Goff is giving the impression that National won’t keep student loans interest free.

Unlike Labour, National actually has an education policy, and you can read the policy on student loans here [PDF]. It quite clearly says people 55 and over cannot borrow for course –related costs, and there will be no interest on student loans. National has said all year ( and in the lead-up to the 2008 election that there will be no interest on student loans.

Part time students will also be unable to borrow for course-related costs.

I asked Phil Goff on an on-line internet “Goff-chat” – I got in very early – whether if Labour would bring back the $1000 course related costs (for part-time and older students) that National took away, if elected in November. You can read what he said here:

We have yet to determine the final shape of our Tertiary Ed package. The critical issue will be what National’s real intentions are with interest –free loans if they are re-elected. They actually oppose the loans but they are too scared to say so before the election.

So Labour’s election year education policy, in part, depends on assumptions on whether National will ignore stated policy intentions once the election is over – and this is a “critical issue” in how policy is formulated. I can’t believe Labour is making election year policy based on what National may do when they win the election. Labour’s tertiary education policy should be based on what it believes should happen –for example, expressing support of voluntary membership of students’ associations and financial support for study costs for all students.

I immediately asked for clarification on these intentions given National’s stated policy. Goff chose not to provide a response.

Labours filibustering (delaying tactics) on the bill to introduce voluntary membership of students’ associations (VSM) ended tonight. For months Labour has forced Parliament to debate the Royal Society Bill in an attempt to stave off debate on the VSM bill – both of which can only be heard on members day, which is every second Wednesday – and there are only about three members days left in 2011.

The debate on the local bill – the Royal Society Bill – was curtailed tonight as Act’s Heather Roy moved a motion to “report progress” on the Bill. This is a provision of parliaments standing orders that allows debate on a bill to stop for that day ( provide a voting majority agree), to be discussed the following day – effectively shutting down debate on a bill until the next sitting day (which in the case of a members or local bill is on August 17, in two weeks). This meant that the following bill on the Order Paper could be debated -which was the VSM bill. As National voted with Roy and Act, it had the numbers to curtail the filibustering, meaning that National and Act are happy to set aside private and local business to get a bill that will gut students’ associations – thus fostering Act’s ideological interests.

Heather Roy’s VSM bill is still currently at the committee stage, which is the stage between the second and final readings. This means that in two weeks, at the next member’s day, the bill will again be debated but as debate will consist of the final clause, this shouldn’t take too long unless Labour spends an hour debating pointless points of order.

What may happen is that if the Royal Society bill is first up, it may be debated for a short period then Heather Roy may well “report progress” on that to curtail debate, with National’s support. Then the last clause of the VSM legislation will be debated. Once that has been debated, it will be read and and debated briefly a third time, which should take two hours, and voted on. If the last clause of the initial debate finishes on August 17, the third reading, debate and vote will occur on the following members day, on August 31.

Both ACT and National have shown that they are willing to set aside other bills to get this bill through rather than going to the table for good faith negotiations and an enduring compromise with regard to membership of students’ associations. It will be interesting to know whether Heather Roy was aware of the motion to report progress and was waiting until tonight to move the motion as her own form of filibustering.

While Roy has criticised Labour’s filibustering and has incorrectly claimed that money is wasted ( Roy has said it costs $453,000 to run Parliament every sitting hour), it is hollow criticism if she wants to move motions to shut down debate on a bill until another sitting day purely because she don’t like the order of bills as they appear on the Parliament’s Order Paper – but waiting for months of filibustering – criticising every day of it – to make her move.

This afternoon Massey University Vice Chancellor Steve Maharey held a “Vice-Chancellors forum” which was broadcast online. Questions were posed by EXMSS president Ralph Springett, and there was an opportunity to ask questions online.

Last summer, Summer School was abruptly closed when student numbers got too high and many students were disadvantaged. While Massey is capping courses to meet the government’s requirements, Maharey said that Summer School is not going to be capped this year, but fees will increase up to 4 per cent next year. We may also see an increase in the student services levy, and move towards a trimester system – rather than two semesters and summer school. . What Massey is also going to do is to change the enrolment system, by moving cut off days forward, and allow a greater focus on electronic enrolments.

Massey is considering having a college in health science and considering adding some professional and short course area of teaching and learning – for example, lawyers who want to learn dispute mediation techniques – short academic targeted toward a particular need. Good.

Maharey also said Massey is seeking to further increase international student numbers, which will generate income. Furthermore the government recently wrote to Massey University suggesting that they continue to do more to increase international student number, so this is also a government imperative.

One of the unknowns is what will happen to advocacy services under an environment when student association membership is voluntary. Maharey’s preference is a permanent independent service. “It is very unusual to have an advocacy service that advocates against the people funding it,” he said. “My preference is to maintain an independent advocacy service, (but) we are going to have to find money from students”.

Another discussion point was the moving to digitalised services, particularly for extramural students. This may reduce the number of contact courses. While Maharey is a “big fan” of contact courses, he sees these courses will be run in an “as is where is” approach where students “ require and feel they need it”.

“We are moving down a pathway at the moment , where there will be an increasing amount of contact through the web rather than attending campus. The feedback from students is that is the direction we want to go in”.

Massey has also previously announced that it is discussing the possibility of limiting study for a particular qualification to eight years, which Maharey said today, was “ a reasonable period of time”. Many within EXMSS would prefer a longer period. But what Massey needs to do, Maharey says, is to put in place a variety of things to ensure that students within an eight year period make progress in the things they need to make within that eight year period.

It will be interesting to see what extra Massey comes up with. So why eight years?

“The government has made it very clear that it will stop funding students within the system. If we don’t do it it`ll be done to us” .