Written By: - Date published: 10:49 am, April 27th, 2012 - 16 comments
Didn’t take much clairvoyance to see that National would fail to meet its promise of a Budget surplus by 2014/15. You’ve never seen a Finance Minister have his forecasts cut so often and look so happy about it. His failure against his own artificial target gives him an excuse to cut. His party’s ineptness to blame but we pay. Students look to be his target this round.
Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, March 14th, 2012 - 32 comments
Key hates interest-free student loans, the only thing that has kept thousands more from leaving the country for higher wages, but says “it’s not politically sustainable to put interest back on student loans”. Why? “That is about the only thing that will get [young people] out of bed before 7 o’clock at night to vote”. Key’s willing to keep a policy he hates as long as you don’t vote.
Written By: - Date published: 2:28 pm, March 13th, 2012 - 133 comments
Student loans will remain interest free, but the Nats are planning to rein them in “in a big way”. I guess that means that typical Nat slash-and-burn thinking will result in damaging restrictions to educational access in due course.
Written By: - Date published: 7:16 am, August 2nd, 2011 - 70 comments
There’s been a lot of coverage of Winston Peters lately. Most of his announcements have been perfectly predictable, but for me there have been two real surprises.
Written By: - Date published: 7:05 am, April 19th, 2011 - 61 comments
The Kea “Census” of expat Kiwis is under way. Unfortunately it coincides with government plans for a Crackdown on student loan repayments. Instead of chasing our expats for an entirely hypothetical return, we should be reaching out to them, embracing them, making them welcome back home.
Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, March 22nd, 2011 - 29 comments
John Armstrong’s contacts in National are telling him that Working for Families and student loans are the targets for cuts in this year’s budget. He also reveals the real reason for National opposing the widely-supported earthquake levy: putting on a tax would be an admission that tax cuts for the rich were a mistake in the first place.
Written By: - Date published: 11:31 pm, March 1st, 2011 - 141 comments
I’m really pissed off that politics has come into the Christchurch earthquake so quickly. But make no mistake, the Nats are pursuing a strongly ideological agenda. They’re using the quake as cover for radically cutting important policies and making other extreme decisions, while preserving the tax cuts for the rich. It’s called the Shock Doctrine.
Written By: - Date published: 7:09 am, August 12th, 2010 - 74 comments
One of the worst effects of student loans is to drive young graduates overseas. What could possibly be stupider? So it’s good to see a policy from this government that is at least a step in the right direction.
Written By: - Date published: 11:35 am, July 29th, 2010 - 60 comments
John Key’s description of student debt as ‘dangerous’ is just the latest broadside from National against interest-free student loans.
But the real problem here isn’t who pays off the interest on student debt, it’s that we have a system that causes such debt to be created in the first place.
Written By: - Date published: 12:41 pm, May 5th, 2010 - 24 comments
You might say that National’s new $50 a year graduate fee is a small thing. But it’s another discouragement for a young person who is looking at either going straight into low-skill, low-pay work or borrowing thousands to get some skills. The last thing we need to be doing is discouraging more people from going on to polytech or uni.
Written By: - Date published: 8:42 am, May 1st, 2009 - 27 comments
National introduced legislation yesterday that will create a 10% bonus for voluntary repayments of student loans. Repay $1,000 above your compulsory repayments, get $1,100 taken off your loan. Sounds like a good deal. Well, not for people who can’t afford to make voluntary repayments but it’s great for the well-off eh? Actually, no. Unless your …
Written By: - Date published: 12:57 pm, September 11th, 2008 - 9 comments
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