It’s true, but I’d like to see what other system he proposes to distribute scarce resources in a fair manner without waste.
As it is our student loan scheme is fuelling far too many diploma mills teaching courses of dubious value to students who should be doing something else.
there are some pretty sketchy course out there (particularly for early school leavers ) that seem to be a rort to hoover up less astute peoples loan entitlements
the “retail” course are the worst, you can end up in SERIOUS debt learning the arcane arts of working in shop !
Uruguay provides free education through to post grad level and a free laptop for every child in primary education and is rolling out the same for ALL students currently
Population of about 4 million, ——NZ about 4.5 million
I would say given their current level of development, that such a policy for Uruguay is sensible – education will be a primary way to lift the productivity of their country. NZ isn’t in the same position.
Also comparing total country population isn’t as important as comparing the number of students taking up these offers, or the types of education being offered, and if you want to get really detailed, the quality of the education (best measured by international ratings of universities and/or achievements of university professors).
what do you consider Uruguays current level of development Lanth
I own a small property there, have spent a lot time there both rural and urban and consider it many ways more developed than NZ ( in the areas in i consider important to be fair)
I would say given their current level of development, that such a policy for Uruguay is sensible – education will be a primary way to lift the productivity of their country. NZ isn’t in the same position.
Actually, NZ is in the same position. Due to not doing the investment to develop our economy needed over the last thirty years and giving that money to the rich instead we have increasing poverty and and an economy overly dependent upon a single sector.
Then we throw in the fact that the low hanging fruit in science and development has gone we actually need more students to work cooperatively to push ever more innovation.
Brazil does as well, and pays generous university scholarships. The only problem there is that the public schools, which the poor go to, are so bad that the privately schooled rich are far more likely to pass the tertiary entry exams. Hence most of the tertiary budget goes to kids who don’t need it. Friends of mine are trying to change this by preparing poorer kids better for the entrance exams.
I’d favour a system where university was basically free, and with useful scholarships for those who deserved them, but with more stringent entry requirements than at present. This could easily be paid for by a slightly higher tax rate on those who have already gone through university, such as myself and Paula Bennett. Alternatively, graduates could be bonded to perform community tasks for a couple of years after graduating. Once enough people realise education is not a commodity to be sold to individuals, just like a massage or a packet of biscuits, we’ll find a way.
“Are there any other education models overseas that we could perhaps emulate?”
“Bonding” is another alternative for occupations that provide public essential services: doctors, nurses, teachers, etc.
Personal example: In return for a free education you agree to spend 4 years working in a designated area of extreme need (rural or poor area). We had a lovely doctor and his young family serve in our rural town. 20 years later they are still there. They decided it was a much better lifestyle than working 60 hours a week in a flash suburb trying to retire the huge debt a medical education requires.
Sadly, they don’t read, full stop. Lanthanide wouldn’t have expressed his bewilderment like he did if he had bothered to read some of Chomsky’s voluminous writing about education.
“students who should be doing something else” – what precisely? Emigration? Crime? There are not so many jobs around these days for those without any formal education. Apprenticeships are rare, and polytechs are being squeezed, so many end up at private institutes that milk them for all they can get.
Languishing on a benefit isn’t socially beneficial, but has better income than study and doesn’t have to be repaid. OAB links show ways in which scarce resources have been put into furthering education for collective good (in Germany & Finland – I think Denmark also has no fees/ loans). The NZ politicians who instituted the high fee/ loan system (Goff & Smith in their forefront) had their own educations paid for by the state at a time when the country was monetarily poorer.
““students who should be doing something else” – what precisely? Emigration? Crime? There are not so many jobs around these days for those without any formal education. Apprenticeships are rare, and polytechs are being squeezed, so many end up at private institutes that milk them for all they can get.”
There should be more jobs, more apprenticeships, better funded and more polytech courses.
At no point am I blaming the students, who are the victims of these diploma mills. I simply said they should be doing something else.
“Languishing on a benefit isn’t socially beneficial, but has better income than study and doesn’t have to be repaid. ”
Going to a diploma mill, getting a student loan and then ending up in a crappy dead-end / low-wage job, or no job at all, isn’t much better.
It’s true, but I’d like to see what other system he proposes to distribute scarce resources in a fair manner without waste.
What the hell, Lanth. What “scarce resources” are you talking about here. What “waste” are you talking about here?
Are children hungry in NZ because there is a “scarcity” of food? Are pensioners in NZ cold because there is a “scarcity” of power? Are hospitals and schools understaffed because of a “scarcity” of nurses and teachers? Get a grip.
What Chomsky is pointing to is a bloody simple idea: the economic system is currently set up as a system of social control and rationing. High controls and strict rationing on the bottom 90% of society. Absolutely minimal controls and rationing on the top 10% of society (but especially the top 0.1%).
FFS man, can you not see the real “waste” which is happening day to day is letting Kiwis rot in a toxic mix of idleness and ignorance?
“What the hell, Lanth. What “scarce resources” are you talking about here. What “waste” are you talking about here?”
I was talking very generally about market-based economies, where the market puts prices on goods and services, which acts as a self-balancing system to minimise waste. Nothing more.
In this particular case, making education completely free leads to waste in the form of people doing study that doesn’t benefit themselves or society at large, hence my further statement that we already have too many diploma mills in this country.
I think you’ll find that there’s more actual waste in the level of unemployment – a level of unemployment that economists say is normal for market based economies. Even education that doesn’t seem to benefit society benefits society as it increases critical thinking levels. And free education means that those people could always go off and get one of those useful degrees later.
I was talking very generally about market-based economies, where the market puts prices on goods and services, which acts as a self-balancing system to minimise waste. Nothing more.
Why don’t you check out your nearest council landfill Lanth, to see how deeply mistaken you are.
In this particular case, making education completely free leads to waste in the form of people doing study that doesn’t benefit themselves or society at large, hence my further statement that we already have too many diploma mills in this country.
Bullshit. The level of fees charged for education have NOTHING to do with the poor design and quality of some tertiary offerings. That’s down to the lack of judgement, purpose, public service values and vision of the supposedly experienced senior management and PhD qualified heads of those “educational institutions.”
And its down to the corporatisation of education: where the only subject areas valued are the ones which help commercial enterprises make more money.
“Why don’t you check out your nearest council landfill Lanth, to see how deeply mistaken you are.”
Hmm, that is a good point. Certainly the profit margin drives companies to make products with built-in obsolescence, which can only be seen as ‘waste’ in the grand scheme of things. I guess that’s a large part of the contribution for why we aren’t all working 10-15 hours a week with lots of leisure time: if the products we bought actually lasted as long as they could/should, we’d have less need of money and less need to work, as well as less work needing to be done.
But in general it is true. For example, in winter, the supply of summer vegetables goes down, pushing the prices up, reducing demand and ensuring that production of winter vegetables is favoured, reducing mis-allocation of resources on summer vegetable crops, etc.
“And its down to the corporatisation of education: where the only subject areas valued are the ones which help commercial enterprises make more money.”
I don’t really have a problem with fine arts degrees, or BAs etc.
My beef is with the private education providers, of which there are huge numbers, who promise things like great careers in IT if you just go study with them… who place you in a call-centre tech support job for an ISP.
Your case by case reasoning is excellent Lanth, but your general case reasoning is highly suspect. I think that is a function of you applying orthodox economic decision making frameworks to areas they are not valid for i.e. 90% of society.
Er, no, education is not “free”, it’s just that the state pays for it.
The difference between “free education” and what we have now, is that you eventually have to pay for the cost of the education yourself, but on an interest-free term (unless you leave the country).
This simply means that instead of going to a diploma mill, getting a crappy bit of paper and a $5k loan, you’d go to the diploma mill and get a crappy bit of paper.
Nope. Then the government would be paying money to the diploma mill. At the moment they are lending it to the students. What they lend out, they get back.
And thanks for telling me that free education is paid by our taxes.
Prior to the neoliberal “reforms” of the ’80s and ’90s, higher education in NZ was free. We hardly need another system.
To answer your question though, Noam Chomsky has been an anarchist his whole life. An explanation of anarchism or communism would be beyond the scope of this discussion, but you can read some of Chomsky’s thoughts on anarchism and student debt here.
You also probably get less innovation and entrepreneurship because you are coming out of Tech or Uni already saddled with debt and staring down the barrell of an enormous mortgage to get onto the property ladder. The Atlantic Monthly recently ran an article here http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/the-disruption-myth/379348/2/ about the slowing pace of innovative disruption and the establishment of new businesses in the US. Gee, do you think a $100,000 debt for your degree might be a factor??
Unnecessary education – demanded by employers and government scourges you to get it. Students are suffering from what they call credential-inflation. How to cut this out? Break through that system of requiring students to have full skills before you hire them. Encourage employers to train staff on the job. And then encourage them in a system where you work your way up, get seniority and better pay. That implies that employers want to keep staff on of course. But at present most want to be able to go to the shelf and pick up a barbie or ken doll, wind it up and put it on the shop floor smiles, arms and legs all working perfectly.
So they demand students spend their own money on the perhaps of getting a job for which they may apply numerous times and never even get the courtesy of a photocopied acknowledgment with their name written in the square at the top.
Employers and the whole shonky right wing approach has whipped away. employment, Also the loss of jobs providing jobs that led on to other jobs for NZ that would give us a healthy economy.
Education is now the Land of Oz where you go and pay for magic employment dust which you try to spread around, sometimes successfully. Lecturers noticed once the fees became a major expense, students limited what they wanted to learn to ensure they could pass their papers. The passing was important, the cost was a burden. Not getting a higher education. And for government education gets you off the unemployment statistics, that it must keep at a certain level on the OECD list of countries they are helping to do over, I mean renovate.
We’ve had The Age of Enlightenment which apparently ended at the start of the 1800s. So do we have the De-Enlightenment now.? The Age of Murky Darkness or The New Dark Ages with the religion of money defining everything? Why don’t we continue with the old enlightened ideas now? What is so wrong with following the prescription?
The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment or Age of Reason) was a cultural movement of intellectuals beginning in late 17th-century Western Europe emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition.[1] It spread across Europe and to the United States, continuing to the end of the 18th century. Its purpose was to reform society using reason, to challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith, and to advance knowledge through the scientific method. It promoted scientific thought, skepticism, and intellectual interchange.[2] The Enlightenment was a revolution in human thought. This new way of thinking was that rational thought begins with clearly stated principles, uses correct logic to arrive at conclusions, tests the conclusions against evidence, and then revises the principles in the light of the evidence. wikipedia.
edited.
As the countries that aren’t infested with right wing education policy continue to leave us behind, and get all the best investment opportunities, the policy will fail and fail and fail, while wingnuts wail and wail and wail, and cling even harder to their failure.
Noam Chomsky has hit the education nail on the head….and Cuba is a case in point ( the true story you never heard from the USA):
For a long time Cuba has been one of the leading countries as regards education in Central and South America…due to widely available , affordable/free high quality state education
“Following the 1959 revolution, the Castro government nationalized all educational institutions, and created a system operated entirely by the government…..
Education expenditures continue to receive high priority, as Cuba spends 10 percent of its central budget on education, compared with 4 percent in the United Kingdom and just 2 percent in the United States, according to UNESCO.[6]…
In 1995, the literacy rate was 96%. This was second after Argentina of thirteen Latin American countries surveyed…
Cuba has 47 universities and total university enrollment is approximately 112,000 citizens….All higher education institutions are public.
Cuba is a world leader in the education and training of doctors…it turns out many , many doctors. As the Michael Moore documentary on USA health System ‘SICKO’ graphically and ironically pointed out Cuban public health care is vastly superior to that in USA..
In fact the Cubans even train doctors who cant afford to be trained in their own countries….”In 1999 a program was implemented to attract students to study medicine in Cuba from less privileged backgrounds in the United States, Britain and Latin American, Caribbean, and African nations.[27] Cuba currently hosts 3432 medical students from 23 nations studying in Havana.[28]
However, Cuba has also provided state subsidized education to foreign nationals under specific programs, including U.S. students who are trained as doctors at the Latin American School of Medicine. The program provides for full scholarships, including accommodation, and its graduates are meant to return to the US to offer low-cost healthcare.”…
I spent 3 months in Cuba 2 years ago. I stayed with a local family who make jokes about Michael Moore’s docos – it was apparently filmed in a “dollar hospital” which is for foreigners or the communist elite. Sure, there are lots of doctors, but drugs are hard to come by and unaffordable for the majority that try to get by on the average Cuban wage (about $30 USD a month). Almost everyone I met dealt on the black market just to get by and I met very few people who had anything positive to say about the Cuban Government.
well as you probably know Cuba has been under an economic embargo by the USA for years …so you can hardly blame Cuba for the lack of medicines or standard of living…considering the effects of this embargo on a small country it is amazing Cuba has survived at all
There are two parts to the student debt. Course university fees then the living allowance loans of about $150 per week which is claimed by those who are not living at home. The latter are the crunch items which raise the total to huge heights.
free broad humanities (philosophy, history, languages, arts, classics etc) based undergrad degree first then specialise into higher levels once you have learned to think widely and understand historical and cultural perspectives.
Loans and debt aside, when university students are almost entirely from the middle class, their world views are never seriously challenged, and so conservatism/orthodoxy deepens at an intergenerational level.
It’s no coincidence that student based activism spiked in the 60s when a fair proportion of students were from working class backgrounds. The prospect of debt and an inability to access ‘lifeboat funds’ from parents when going through University, more or less excludes the working class these days.
+100 Bill…and the cost of tertiary education and the difficulty in finding jobs and paying back loans for university education …..also channels students into strictly vocational degrees
…again less time for thinking and reading and researching and learning and critical thinking about deep philosophical , psychological, political, social , religious and historical issues
….university education is being undermined from within as well as from without
…university education is becoming training for a professional vocation rather than the education of the whole person…and society as well as the individual is the loser
“when university students are almost entirely from the middle class, their world views are never seriously challenged, and so conservatism/orthodoxy deepens at an intergenerational level.”
Yup. From personal experience, I’ll agree with you there Bill. My unconventional academic path has led me to ‘surprise’ fellow students and mentors with the way I understand how societal structures are perceived and operate compared with the way they treat societal structures as uncontested best practice that people must fit into
Bill, not sure about your assertion that university students were more representative of working class backgrounds (in NZ?) than these days.
Small sample etc etc but in 1969 NZ History tutorial of some 15 students, asked about our class origins, all but one were middle class. We believed then that university was the prerogative of the middle class.
Have you some research to indicate otherwise?
We middle class students of the late sixties sure knew about student activism though- Harewood bases, Omega, Vietnam, Peace Power and Politics in Asia, student representation at Uni. I’m the son of a grocer- “petit bourgeois” was my answer to the question. I spent very little time studying in 1968 failing all but one of my units, but spent a lot of time challenging the values of the day.
My sense is that more working class folk are getting to Uni as numbers increase and more degrees as a percentage are awarded to attendees, or are working class numbers diminishing? Could be wrong though.
That’s the way you keep societies efficient and healthy from the point of view of the corporations. And as universities move towards a corporate business model, precarity is exactly what is being imposed. And we’ll see more and more of it.
And we see it here as well as National make more corporatechanges to our universities.
David Harvey makes the same point as Chomsky , but about mortgages. people with mortgages don’t srrike. they also tend to develop certain attitudes like cynical detachment.. having no considerable assets and being Christian have a complementary effect on me – both things free me up to be experimental with my life. currently I’m doing business and I feel totally free to charge people what I think is fair, instead of maxing out my fees according to market rates, which in my line of work are desperately, corrosively cynical. so, that’s a wonderful liberty that I have. also, following Christ requires you to be a bit cavalier about conventional wisdom. like eagleton says, if it doesn’t get you killed it appears that you have some explaining to do. on the path of radical integrity are deep suffering and profound peace.
They dress up with a partial conscience when they think it may benefit them – couldn’t bring myself to vote for them this election and I’ve been left my whole life.
Student debt made the Herald last weekend.
Verity Johnson writes..
“Students are increasingly worried about money. Not, “how many boxes of wine can I buy with all the change under the sofa?” But, “how will my degree get me a stable future career that repays my gaping debts?” This manifests itself in the serious, grey and practical pall that has settled over us students. I don’t blame us students. The message behind universities has changed historically.
Once, uni was about knowledge. Now we’re told to pick sensible degrees that will get us a sensible job with a sensible salary.
University is supposed to be about stretching your mind. This model makes it about your stretched pocket.”
The following are 18 sobering facts about the unprecedented student loan debt crisis in the United States…
#1 According to the Wall Street Journal, the class of 2014 is “the most indebted ever“…http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/congatulations-to-class-of-2014-the-most-indebted-ever-1368/
#2 In 1994, less than half of all college graduates left school with student loan debt. Today, it is over 70 percent.
#3 Approximately 15 percent of graduate and professional school students leave school with student loan debt balances in the six figures.
#4 At this point, student loan debt has hit a grand total of 1.2 trillion dollars in the United States. That number has grown by about 84 percent just since 2008.
#5 According to the Pew Research Center, nearly four out of every ten U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 40 is paying off student loan debt right now.
#6 The median net worth of young households that have student loan debt is 20 percent lower than the median net worth of young households that do not have any student loan debt and that are led by someone with only a high school education.
#7 Among college educated people, the median net worth of young households that do not have student loan debt is seven times higher than the median net worth of young households that do have student loan debt.
#8 In 2008, approximately 29 million Americans were paying off student loan debts. Today, that number has ballooned to 40 million.
#9 Since 2005, student loan debt burdens have absolutely exploded while salaries for young college graduates have actually declined…
#10 According to CNN, 260,000 Americans with a college or professional degree made at or below the federal minimum wage last year.
#11 Even after accounting for inflation, the cost of college tuition increased by 275 percent between 1970 and 2013.
#12 Debt for law school students has risen dramatically over the past decade or s
#13 Last year it was being reported that 34.9 percent of all student loan borrowers under the age of 30 are at least 90 days behind on their student loan payments.
“Labour did nothing and crushed the one party that was prepared to make Tertiary Education free…..the Mana/Internet Party”
Actually, that comment, made me get off my lazy arse and do just a little research.
Yeah, gutting, old Roger Me Now Nomics helped put the wedge in a while back, then down track, labour removed the interest on student loans. National introduced EFTs system and has been quielty removing funding from Universities since (are they not dropping in rankings?). So, changes were made to fund the increased projections of students entering Universities. But I really do not trust any of the powers that be, that further changes (taxes) will eventually turn up.
That aside, here as some good links (which informed me from both sides of the fence): Again, however, we do seem to be following the USA and GB, and their projections are not looking pretty.
2. It was National that introduced the “bums on seats” funding model, in which universities were funded based on the number of equivalent full-time students (EFTS) enrolled.
Throughout National’s nine years in power, government funding of the tertiary education sector steadily decreased. Universities resorted to rising student fees to cover deficits, a trend that still persists at universities across the country. The election of Labour in 1999 did not stem the tide of changes to the way tertiary education is funded in this country.
( a good summary of Universities and costs up to 2009). Aside it was National who did not want to touch the topic of taxing students… political expedience only… not love.
4. Heres the biggest for last (but remember, there is no mention of DOL studies and if people end up in their intended field etc). As with many stats, there are positives and Negatives:
The Student Loans Scheme Annual Report 2013 provides information on the scheme and those who borrowed from it in 2012, as well as the financial schedules for the year to 30 June 2013. The information in the report aligns with the outcomes framework developed by the agencies that manage and administer the scheme. Key findings in the report are:
The nominal value of loan balances was $13,562 million as at 30 June 2013.
201,187 students borrowed from the loan scheme in 2012 (73 percent of eligible students).
As at 30 June 2013, 710,000 people had a student loan with Inland Revenue.
The median repayment time for those who left study in 2009 and remained in New Zealand was 6.7 years.
Author(s): Ministry of Education.
Date Published: December 2013
Please consider the environment before printing the contents of this report.
This report is available as a download (please refer to the ‘Downloads/Links’ inset box, top right). This inset box also has links to related publications and information that may be of interest. Please consider the environment before printing.
Highlights
Student Loan Scheme portfolio
As at 30 June 2013:
The nominal value of loan balances was $13,562 million. (Refer to chapter 4.0.)
The carrying value of the loan scheme – calculated using International Financing Reporting Standards – was $8,288 million. (Refer to chapter 4.0.)
The carrying value ratio increased from 63.9 percent of the nominal value to 61.1 percent of the nominal value ratio. (Refer to chapter 4.1.)
The fair value of the loan scheme was approximately $8,298 million. (Refer to chapter 4.0.)
The cost of lending is forecast to increase to 40 cents per dollar for the period 1 July 2013 to 31 December 2013. It is forecast to increase to 42 cents for each dollar lent by 2016/17. (Refer to chapter 4.2)
710,968 people had a student loan with Inland Revenue for collection. (Refer to chapter 3.2.)
Since the loan scheme began:
Students have borrowed a total of $18,520 million. (Refer to chapter 3.1.)
$8,125 million has been collected in loan repayments. (Refer to chapter 3.3.)
More than 374,000 loans have been fully repaid. (Refer to chapter 3.3.)
During 2012/13:
$1,150.7 million in loan repayments was received by Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Social Development, $274.2 million more than last year. (Refer to chapter 5.3)
Outcomes
Research shows that people with tertiary qualifications have lower unemployment, higher incomes and increased wellbeing. (Refer to chapter 2.2.)
The number of domestic students in tertiary education in 2012 was 375,000 compared with 245,000, the number enrolled in 1994. (Refer to chapter 1.1.)
The participation rate for Māori of all ages was 14.6 percent in 2012, down from 15.1 percent in 2011. The participation rate of Pasifika students in 2012 was 11.4 percent, down from 11.5 percent in 2011. (Refer to chapter 1.1.)
The total number of qualifications completed in 2012 was 143,000 by 126,000 domestic students, an increase of 2.7 percent from 2011. (Refer to chapter 1.1.)
The total number of qualifications completed in the New Zealand tertiary system in 2012 was 162,000. (Refer to chapter 1.1.)
About borrowing in 2012
201,187 students (73 percent of eligible students) borrowed from the loan scheme. (Refer to chapter 3.1)
Of these 54,836 were new borrowers (based on provisional Ministry of Social Development data), representing 27 percent of all borrowers. (Refer to chapter 3.1.)
The average amount borrowed was $7,822 and the median amount borrowed was $6,9889. (Refer to chapter 3.1.)
Borrowers
Between 1997 and 2012:
57 percent were female. (Refer to chapter 3.2.)
48 percent were European, 22 percent were Māori, 12 percent were Asian and 9 percent were Pasifika. (Refer to chapter 3.2.)
47 percent had studied at non-degree level, 35 percent at bachelors level and 9 percent at postgraduate level. (Refer to chapter 3.2.)
As at 30 June 2013:
The average loan held by Inland Revenue was $19,076 and the median loan balance was $13,307. (Refer to chapter 3.2.)
57 percent of repayments were collected through the PAYE tax system in the 2012/13 tax year. (Refer to chapter 3.3.)
Repayment times
The median repayment time for those who finished study in 2003 was 7.2 years. (Refer to chapter 3.4.)
The median repayment time for those who finished study in 2006 is expected to be 7.5 years. (Refer to chapter 3.4.)
The median repayment time for those who finished study in 2009 is expected to by 7.3 years. (Refer to chapter 3.4.)
The median repayment time for those who left study in 2009 and remained in New Zealand was 6.7 years. (Refer to chapter 3.4.)
4.
Watching my daughters do exactly as Chomsky predicts, through sheer exhaustion (though they did come out and sign wave for Labour, and did hold hope for a while before the election):
-trying to work (in ever more scarce part time jobs) around impossible timetables, not announced until the last minute
-studying with increasing sense of detachment from reality by universities having to assume “corporate” competitive models
-educational inflation means they have to do masters, so studying goes on…and on… and costs more and more….
And then the job market is so tight you need contacts to get a foot in the door, if we are honest, so how to pay off student debt, they can’t afford to work overseas as the debt increases even more.
The logical conclusion to this? Only the rich (but not necessarily the bright and motivated) will have a decent education…hey just like the old days!!
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The northern expressway extension from Warkworth to Whangarei is likely to require radical changes to legislation if it is going to be built within the foreseeable future. The Government’s powers to purchase land, the planning process and current restrictions on road tolling are all going to need to be changed ...
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when publishedFirst they came for the doctors But I was confused by the numbers and costs So I didn't speak up Then they came for our police and nurses And I didn't think we could afford those costs anyway So I ...
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on UnsplashWe’re back again after our mid-winter break. We’re still with the ‘new’ day of the week (Thursday rather than Friday) when we have our ‘hoon’ webinar with paying subscribers to The Kākā for an hour at 5 pm.Jump on this link on YouTube Livestream ...
Notes: This is a free article. Abuse in Care themes are mentioned. Video is at the bottom.BackgroundYesterday’s report into Abuse in Care revealed that at least 1 in 3 of all who went through state and faith based care were abused - often horrifically. At least, because not all survivors ...
Luxon speaks in Parliament yesterday about the Abuse in Care report. Photo: Hagen Hopkins/Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:PM Christopher Luxon said yesterday in tabling the Abuse in Carereport in Parliament he wanted to ‘do the ...
About a decade ago I worked with a bloke called Steve. He was the grizzled veteran coder, a few years older than me, who knew where the bodies were buried - code wise. Despite his best efforts to be approachable and friendly he could be kind of gruff, through to ...
Some of the recent announcements from the government have reminded us of posts we’ve written in the past. Here’s one from early 2020. There were plenty of reactions to the government’s infrastructure announcement a few weeks ago which saw them fund a bunch of big roading projects. One of ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Thursday, July 25 are:News: Why Electric Kiwi is closing to new customers - and why it matters RNZ’s Susan EdmundsScoop: Government drops ...
Hi,I felt a small wet tongue snaking through one of the holes in my Crocs. It explored my big toe, darting down one side, then the other. “He’s looking for some toe cheese,” said the woman next to me, words that still haunt me to this day.Growing up in New ...
Yesterday I happily quoted the Prime Minister without fact-checking him and sure enough, it turns out his numbers were all to hell. It’s not four kg of Royal Commission report, it’s fourteen.My friend and one-time colleague-in-comms Hazel Phillips gently alerted me to my error almost as soon as I’d hit ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Thursday, July 25, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day were:The Abuse in Care Royal Commission of Inquirypublished its final report yesterday.PM Christopher Luxon and The Minister responsible for ...
The Official Information Act has always been a battle between requesters seeking information, and governments seeking to control it. Information is power, so Ministers and government agencies want to manage what is released and when, for their own convenience, and legality and democracy be damned. Their most recent tactic for ...
TL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:Transport and Energy Minister Simeon Brown is accelerating plans to spend at least $10 billion through Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) to extend State Highway One as a four-lane ‘Expressway’ from Warkworth to Whangarei ...
I live my life (woo-ooh-ooh)With no control in my destinyYea-yeah, yea-yeah (woo-ooh-ooh)I can bleed when I want to bleedSo come on, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)You can bleed when you want to bleedYea-yeah, come on (woo-ooh-ooh)Everybody bleed when they want to bleedCome on and bleedGovernments face tough challenges. Selling unpopular decisions to ...
Please note:To skip directly to the- parliamentary footage in the video, scroll to 1:21 To skip to audio please click on the headphone iconon the left hand side of the screenThis video / audio section is under development. ...
Given the crackdown on wasteful government spending, it behooves me to point to a high profile example of spending by the Luxon government that looks like a big, fat waste of time and money. I’m talking about the deployment of NZDF personnel to support the US-led coalition in the Red ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:40 am on Wednesday, July 24 are:Deep Dive: Chipping away at the housing crisis, including my comments RNZ/Newsroom’s The DetailNews: Government softens on asset sales, ...
As I reported about the city centre, Auckland’s rail network is also going through a difficult and disruptive period which is rapidly approaching a culmination, this will result in a significant upgrade to the whole network. Hallelujah. Also like the city centre this is an upgrade predicated on the City ...
Today, a 4 kilogram report will be delivered to Parliament. We know this is what the report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care weighs, because our Prime Minister told us so.Some reporter had blindsided him by asking a question about something done by ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Wednesday, July 24, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Beehive:Transport Minister Simeon Brownannounced plans to use PPPs to fund, build and run a four-lane expressway between Auckland ...
NewstalkZB host Mike Hosking, who can usually be relied on to give Prime Minister Christopher Luxon an easy run, did not do so yesterday when he interviewed him about the HealthNZ deficit. Luxon is trying to use a deficit reported last year by HealthNZ as yet another example of the ...
Back in January a StatsNZ employee gave a speech at Rātana on behalf of tangata whenua in which he insulted and criticised the government. The speech clearly violated the principle of a neutral public service, and StatsNZ started an investigation. Part of that was getting an external consultant to examine ...
Renting for life: Shared ownership initiatives are unlikely to slow the slide in home ownership by much. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy today are:A Deloittereport for Westpac has projected Aotearoa’s home-ownership rate will ...
You're broken down and tiredOf living life on a merry go roundAnd you can't find the fighterBut I see it in you so we gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsWe gonna walk it outAnd move mountainsAnd I'll rise upI'll rise like the dayI'll rise upI'll rise unafraidI'll rise upAnd I'll ...
There’s been a change in Myers Park. Down the steps from St. Kevin’s Arcade, past the grassy slopes, the children’s playground, the benches and that goat statue, there has been a transformation. The underpass for Mayoral Drive has gone from a barren, grey, concrete tunnel, to a place that thrums ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Global society may have finally slammed on the brakes for climate-warming pollution released by human fossil fuel combustion. According to the Carbon Monitor Project, the total global climate pollution released between February and May 2024 declined slightly from the amount released during the same ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Tuesday, July 23 are:Deep Dive: Penlink: where tolling rhetoric meets reality BusinessDesk-$$$’sOliver LewisScoop:Te Pūkenga plans for regional polytechs leak out ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Tuesday, July 23, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:Health: Shane Reti announcedthe Board of Te Whatu Ora-Health New Zealand was being replaced with Commissioner Lester Levy ...
Health NZ warned the Government at the end of March that it was running over Budget. But the reasons it gave were very different to those offered by the Prime Minister yesterday. Prime Minister Christopher Luxon blamed the “botched merger” of the 20 District Health Boards (DHBs) to create Health ...
Long ReadKey Summary: Although National increased the health budget by $1.4 billion in May, they used an old funding model to project health system costs, and never bothered to update their pre-election numbers. They were told during the Health Select Committees earlier in the year their budget amount was deficient, ...
As a momentous, historic weekend in US politics unfolded, analysts and commentators grasped for precedents and comparisons to help explain the significance and power of the choice Joe Biden had made. The 46th president had swept the Democratic party’s primaries but just over 100 days from the election had chosen ...
TL;DR: I’m casting around for new ideas and ways of thinking about Aotearoa’s political economy to find a few solutions to our cascading and self-reinforcing housing, poverty and climate crises.Associate Professor runs an online masters degree in the economics of sustainability at Torrens University in Australia and is organising ...
The Finance and Expenditure Committee has reported back on National's Local Government (Water Services Preliminary Arrangements) Bill. The bill sets up water for privatisation, and was introduced under urgency, then rammed through select committee with no time even for local councils to make a proper submission. Naturally, national's select committee ...
Some years ago, I bought a book at Dunedin’s Regent Booksale for $1.50. As one does. Vandrad the Viking (1898), by J. Storer Clouston, is an obscure book these days – I cannot find a proper online review – but soon it was sitting on my shelf, gathering dust alongside ...
History is not on the side of the centre-left, when Democratic presidents fall behind in the polls and choose not to run for re-election. On both previous occasions in the past 75 years (Harry Truman in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1968) the Democrats proceeded to then lose the White House ...
This is a free articleCoverageThis morning, US President Joe Biden announced his withdrawal from the Presidential race. And that is genuinely newsworthy. Thanks for your service, President Biden, and all the best to you and yours.However, the media in New Zealand, particularly the 1News nightly bulletin, has been breathlessly covering ...
A homeless person’s camp beside a blocked-off slipped damage walkway in Freeman’s Bay: we are chasing our tail on our worsening and inter-related housing, poverty and climate crises. Photo: Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy ...
What has happened to it all?Crazy, some'd sayWhere is the life that I recognise?(Gone away)But I won't cry for yesterdayThere's an ordinary worldSomehow I have to findAnd as I try to make my wayTo the ordinary worldYesterday morning began as many others - what to write about today? I began ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 7:00 am on Monday, July 22 are:Today’s Must Read: Father and son live in a tent, and have done for four years, in a million ...
TL;DR: As of 7:00 am on Monday, July 22, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:US President Joe Biden announced via X this morning he would not stand for a second term.Multinational professional services firm ...
A listing of 32 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, July 14, 2024 thru Sat, July 20, 2024. Story of the week As reflected by preponderance of coverage, our Story of the Week is Project 2025. Until now traveling ...
This weekend, a friend pointed out someone who said they’d like to read my posts, but didn’t want to pay. And my first reaction was sympathy.I’ve already told folks that if they can’t comfortably subscribe, and would like to read, I’d be happy to offer free subscriptions. I don’t want ...
National: The Party of ‘Law and Order’ IntroductionThis weekend, the Government formally kicked off one of their flagship policy programs: a military style boot camp that New Zealand has experimented with over the past 50 years. Cartoon credit: Guy BodyIt’s very popular with the National Party’s Law and Orderimage, ...
Day one of the solo leg of my long journey home begins with my favourite sound: footfalls in an empty street. 5.00 am and it’s already light and already too warm, almost.If I can make the train that leaves Budapest later this hour I could be in Belgrade by nightfall; ...
Do you remember Y2K, the threat that hung over humanity in the closing days of the twentieth century? Horror scenarios of planes falling from the sky, electronic payments failing and ATMs refusing to dispense cash. As for your VCR following instructions and recording your favourite show - forget about it.All ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts being questioned by The Kākā’s Bernard Hickey.TL;DR: My top six things to note around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the week to July 20 were:1. A strategy that fails Zero Carbon Act & Paris targetsThe National-ACT-NZ First Coalition Government finally unveiled ...
Summary:As New Zealand loses at least 12 leaders in the public service space of health, climate, and pharmaceuticals, this month alone, directly in response to the Government’s policies and budget choices, what lies ahead may be darker than it appears. Tui examines some of those departures and draws a long ...
The Minister of Housing’s ambition is to reduce markedly the ratio of house prices to household incomes. If his strategy works it would transform the housing market, dramatically changing the prospects of housing as an investment.Leaving aside the Minister’s metaphor of ‘flooding the market’ I do not see how the ...
As previously noted, my historical fantasy piece, set in the fifth-century Mediterranean, was accepted for a Pirate Horror anthology, only for the anthology to later fall through. But in a good bit of news, it turned out that the story could indeed be re-marketed as sword and sorcery. As of ...
An employee of tobacco company Philip Morris International demonstrates a heated tobacco device. Photo: Getty ImagesTL;DR: The top six things I’ve noted around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy on Friday, July 19 are:At a time when the Coalition Government is cutting spending on health, infrastructure, education, housing ...
TL;DR: My pick of the top six links elsewhere around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day or so to 8:30 am on Friday, July 19 are:Scoop: NZ First Minister Casey Costello orders 50% cut to excise tax on heated tobacco products. The minister has ...
Kia ora, it’s time for another Friday roundup, in which we pull together some of the links and stories that caught our eye this week. Feel free to add more in the comments! Our header image this week shows a foggy day in Auckland town, captured by Patrick Reynolds. ...
TL;DR : Here’s the top six items climate news for Aotearoa this week, as selected by Bernard Hickey and The Kākā’s climate correspondent Cathrine Dyer. A discussion recorded yesterday is in the video above and the audio of that sent onto the podcast feed.The Government released its draft Emissions Reduction ...
Save some money, get rich and old, bring it back to Tobacco Road.Bring that dynamite and a crane, blow it up, start all over again.Roll up. Roll up. Or tailor made, if you prefer...Whether you’re selling ciggies, digging for gold, catching dolphins in your nets, or encouraging folks to flutter ...
Waiting In The Wings:For truly, if Trump is America’s un-assassinated Caesar, then J.D. Vance is America’s Octavian, the Republic’s youthful undertaker – and its first Emperor.DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION of James D. Vance as his running-mate bodes ill for the American republic. A fervent supporter of Viktor Orban, the “illiberal” prime ...
TL;DR: As of 6:00 am on Friday, July 19, the top six announcements, speeches, reports and research around housing, climate and poverty in Aotearoa’s political economy in the last day are:The PSAannounced the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) had ruled in the PSA’s favour in its case against the Ministry ...
Te Rangi e tu nei (The sky above us) Te Papa e takoto nei (The land beneath us) Tatou katoa te hunga ora (To us all the living) Tena koutou katoa (Greetings) ...
A late change to charter school legislation will cheat educators out of fair pay and negotiating power proving charter schools are just a vehicle to make profit out of our education system. ...
In 2004 te iwi Māori rallied against the Crown’s attempt to confiscate our coastlines and moana with the Foreshore and Seabed Act. This led to the largest hīkoi of a generation and the birth of Te Pāti Māori. 20 years later, history is repeating itself. Today the government has announced ...
It has been five and a half years since the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care was established to investigate the abuse of children, young people, and vulnerable adults within state and faith-based institutions. Yesterday, the final report - Whanaketia through pain and trauma, from darkness to light ...
The Green Party is calling on the Government to take action off the back of the International Court of Justice ruling on Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine. ...
On Friday the International Court of Justice reaffirmed what Palestinian’s have been telling us for decades: that the occupation and colonisation of Palestinian lands by Israel is illegal and must end immediately. They also called for reparations for Palestinian’s who have lived under Israeli occupation since it began in 1967. ...
Labour calls on the Government to act after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian Territories is illegal. ...
The 53.7 percent rise in benefit sanctions over the last year is more proof of this Government’s disdain for our communities most in need of support. ...
Aotearoa could be a country where every child grows up feeling safe, loved and with a sense of belonging in their whānau and community. But for some of our children, this is far from reality. Instead, they are trapped in a maze of intergenerational harm that they can’t escape on ...
Te Pāti Māori are calling for David Seymour to resign as Associate Health Minister in response to his call for Pharmac to ignore the Treaty of Waitangi. “This announcement is just another example of the government’s anti-Tiriti, anti-Māori agenda.” Said Co-leader and spokesperson for health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. “Seymour thinks it ...
The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country - with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent. ...
National’s Emissions Reduction Plan will take New Zealand further from the economy we need to ensure the next generation has a stable climate and secure livelihoods. ...
Following consultation with named parties and thorough consideration of privacy interests, the Green Party is in a position to release the Executive Summary of the final report from the independent investigation into Darleen Tana. ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon should be asking serious questions of his Minister for Resources Shane Jones now it’s been revealed he misled the public about a dinner with mining companies that he didn’t declare and said wasn’t pre-arranged. ...
Te Pāti Māori have submitted to the Justice Select Committee against the Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill. The bill will further entrench racism in our justice system and fails to focus on rehabilitation. “Reinstating Three Strikes will empower a systematically racist system and exacerbate the overrepresentation of Māori in ...
The Transport and Infrastructure Committee is set to make a determination on the Residential Tenancies Amendment (RTA) Bill in the coming weeks. “This legislation will give landlords the power to kick our whānau out onto the street for no reason” said Housing spokesperson, Mariameno Kapa-Kingi. “Their solution to the housing ...
“National’s campaign was about tackling crime and the best they can do is a two-year long Ministerial Advisory Group,” Labour justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said. ...
“There are more examples of charter schools failing their students than there are success stories. The coalition Government is driving to dismantle our public school system and instead promote a privatised, competitive structure that puts profits before kids,” Jan Tinetti said. ...
“This government is choosing to deliberately mislead and withhold information, keeping our people in the dark about this government’s agenda and the future of our mokopuna,” said co-leader and spokesperson for Health, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. The call comes after the demand from the Chief Ombudsman that Associate Minister of Health, Casey ...
“Today’s climate announcement by Simon Watts makes clear the National Government is simply paying lip service to meeting its climate change targets,” Megan Woods said. ...
National is choosing to make life harder for workers by taking away the rights our communities have fought hard for. Here's how they’re taking workers backwards. ...
Australia, Canada and New Zealand today issued the following statement on the need for an urgent ceasefire in Gaza and the risk of expanded conflict between Hizballah and Israel. The situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The human suffering is unacceptable. It cannot continue. We remain unequivocal in our condemnation of ...
Attorney-General Judith Collins today reminded all State and faith-based institutions of their legal obligation to preserve records relevant to the safety and wellbeing of those in its care. “The Abuse in Care Inquiry’s report has found cases where records of the most vulnerable people in State and faith‑based institutions were ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says the Government’s online safety website for children and young people has reached one million page views. “It is great to see so many young people and their families accessing the site Keep It Real Online to learn how to stay safe online, and manage ...
Tēnā tātou katoa, Ngā mihi te rangi, ngā mihi te whenua, ngā mihi ki a koutou, kia ora mai koutou. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to speak at this 50th anniversary conference. I acknowledge all those who have gone before us and paved the ...
New Zealand’s payroll providers have successfully prepared to ensure 3.5 million individuals will, from Wednesday next week, be able to keep more of what they earn each pay, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis and Revenue Minister Simon Watts. “The Government's tax policy changes are legally effective from Wednesday. Delivering this tax ...
An experimental vineyard which will help futureproof the wine sector has been opened in Blenheim by Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson. The covered vineyard, based at the New Zealand Wine Centre – Te Pokapū Wāina o Aotearoa, enables controlled environmental conditions. “The research that will be produced at the Experimental ...
The Coalition Government has confirmed the indicative regional breakdown of North Island Weather Event (NIWE) funding for state highway recovery projects funded through Budget 2024, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “Regions in the North Island suffered extensive and devastating damage from Cyclone Gabrielle and the 2023 Auckland Anniversary Floods, and ...
Indonesia’s Foreign Minister, Retno Marsudi, will visit New Zealand next week, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “Indonesia is important to New Zealand’s security and economic interests and is our closest South East Asian neighbour,” says Mr Peters, who is currently in Laos to engage with South East Asian partners. ...
He aha te kai a te rangatira? He kōrero, he kōrero, he kōrero. The government has reaffirmed its commitment to supporting the aspirations of Ngāti Maniapoto, Minister for Māori Development Tama Potaka says. “My thanks to Te Nehenehenui Trust – Ngāti Maniapoto for bringing their important kōrero to a ministerial ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has thanked outgoing Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority, Janice Fredric, for her service to the board.“I have received Ms Fredric’s resignation from the role of Chair of the Civil Aviation Authority,” Mr Brown says.“On behalf of the Government, I want to thank Ms Fredric for ...
The Government is proposing legislation to overturn a Court of Appeal decision and amend the Marine and Coastal Area Act in order to restore Parliament’s test for Customary Marine Title, Treaty Negotiations Minister Paul Goldsmith says. “Section 58 required an applicant group to prove they have exclusively used and occupied ...
Regulation Minister David Seymour says that opposition parties have united in bad faith, opposing what they claim are ‘dangerous changes’ to the Early Childhood Education sector, despite no changes even being proposed yet. “Issues with affordability and availability of early childhood education, and the complexity of its regulation, has led ...
After receiving more than 740 submissions in the first 20 days, Regulation Minister David Seymour is asking the Ministry for Regulation to extend engagement on the early childhood education regulation review by an extra two weeks. “The level of interest has been very high, and from the conversations I’ve been ...
The Coalition Government is investing $802.9 million into the Wairarapa and Manawatū rail lines as part of a funding agreement with the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA), KiwiRail, and the Greater Wellington and Horizons Regional Councils to deliver more reliable services for commuters in the lower North Island, Transport Minister Simeon ...
Local Government Minister Simeon Brown has announced his intention to appoint a Crown Manager to both Hawke’s Bay Regional and Wairoa District Councils to speed up the delivery of flood protection work in Wairoa."Recent severe weather events in Wairoa this year, combined with damage from Cyclone Gabrielle in 2023 have ...
Mr Speaker, this is a day that many New Zealanders who were abused in State care never thought would come. It’s the day that this Parliament accepts, with deep sorrow and regret, the Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in Care. At the heart of this report are the ...
For the first time, the Government is formally acknowledging some children and young people at Lake Alice Psychiatric Hospital experienced torture. The final report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Abuse in State and Faith-based Care “Whanaketia – through pain and trauma, from darkness to light,” was tabled in Parliament ...
The Government has acknowledged the nearly 2,400 courageous survivors who shared their experiences during the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care. The final report from the largest and most complex public inquiry ever held in New Zealand, the Royal Commission Inquiry “Whanaketia – through ...
With a week to go before hard-working New Zealanders see personal income tax relief for the first time in fourteen years, 513,000 people have used the Budget tax calculator to see how much they will benefit, says Finance Minister Nicola Willis. “Tax relief is long overdue. From next Wednesday, personal income ...
Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden says a bill that has passed its first reading will improve parental leave settings and give non-biological parents more flexibility as primary carer for their child. The Regulatory Systems Amendment Bill (No3), passed its first reading this morning. “It includes a change ...
Two Bills designed to improve regulation and make it easier to do business have passed their first reading in Parliament, says Economic Development Minister Melissa Lee. The Regulatory Systems (Economic Development) Amendment Bill and Regulatory Systems (Immigration and Workforce) Amendment Bill make key changes to legislation administered by the Ministry ...
New legislation paves the way for greater competition in sectors such as banking and electricity, Commerce and Consumer Affairs Minister Andrew Bayly says. “Competitive markets boost productivity, create employment opportunities and lift living standards. To support competition, we need good quality regulation but, unfortunately, a recent OECD report ranked New ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says lotteries for charitable purposes, such as those run by the Heart Foundation, Coastguard NZ, and local hospices, will soon be allowed to operate online permanently. “Under current laws, these fundraising lotteries are only allowed to operate online until October 2024, after which ...
The Coalition Government is accelerating work on the new four-lane expressway between Auckland and Whangārei as part of its Roads of National Significance programme, with an accelerated delivery model to deliver this project faster and more efficiently, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “For too long, the lack of resilient transport connections ...
Sir Don McKinnon will travel to Viet Nam this week as a Special Envoy of the Government, Foreign Minister Winston Peters has announced. “It is important that the Government give due recognition to the significant contributions that General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong made to New Zealand-Viet Nam relations,” Mr ...
Minister of Internal Affairs Brooke van Velden says newly appointed Commissioner, Grant Illingworth KC, will help deliver the report for the first phase of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into COVID-19 Lessons, due on 28 November 2024. “I am pleased to announce that Mr Illingworth will commence his appointment as ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters travels to Laos this week to participate in a series of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-led Ministerial meetings in Vientiane. “ASEAN plays an important role in supporting a peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific,” Mr Peters says. “This will be our third visit to ...
Construction of a new mental health facility at Te Nikau Grey Hospital in Greymouth is today one step closer, Mental Health Minister Matt Doocey says. “This $27 million facility shows this Government is delivering on its promise to boost mental health care and improve front line services,” Mr Doocey says. ...
New Zealand is committing nearly $50 million to a package supporting sustainable Pacific fisheries development over the next four years, Foreign Minister Winston Peters and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones announced today. “This support consisting of a range of initiatives demonstrates New Zealand’s commitment to assisting our Pacific partners ...
Associate Education Minister David Seymour says proposed changes to the Education and Training Amendment Bill will ensure charter schools have more flexibility to negotiate employment agreements and are equipped with the right teaching resources. “Cabinet has agreed to progress an amendment which means unions will not be able to initiate ...
In response to serious concerns around oversight, overspend and a significant deterioration in financial outlook, the Board of Health New Zealand will be replaced with a Commissioner, Health Minister Dr Shane Reti announced today. “The previous government’s botched health reforms have created significant financial challenges at Health NZ that, without ...
Minister for Space and Science, Innovation and Technology Judith Collins will travel to Adelaide tomorrow for space and science engagements, including speaking at the Australian Space Forum. While there she will also have meetings and visits with a focus on space, biotechnology and innovation. “New Zealand has a thriving space ...
Climate Change Minister Simon Watts will travel to China on Saturday to attend the Ministerial on Climate Action meeting held in Wuhan. “Attending the Ministerial on Climate Action is an opportunity to advocate for New Zealand climate priorities and engage with our key partners on climate action,” Mr Watts says. ...
Oceans and Fisheries Minister Shane Jones is travelling to the Solomon Islands tomorrow for meetings with his counterparts from around the Pacific supporting collective management of the region’s fisheries. The 23rd Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Committee and the 5th Regional Fisheries Ministers’ Meeting in Honiara from 23 to 26 July ...
The Government today launched the Military Style Academy Pilot at Te Au rere a te Tonga Youth Justice residence in Palmerston North, an important part of the Government’s plan to crackdown on youth crime and getting youth offenders back on track, Minister for Children, Karen Chhour said today. “On the ...
The Government has welcomed news the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) has begun work to replace nine priority bridges across the country to ensure our state highway network remains resilient, reliable, and efficient for road users, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says.“Increasing productivity and economic growth is a key priority for the ...
Acting Prime Minister David Seymour has been in contact throughout the evening with senior officials who have coordinated a whole of government response to the global IT outage and can provide an update. The Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet has designated the National Emergency Management Agency as the ...
New Zealand and Japan will continue to step up their shared engagement with the Pacific, Foreign Minister Winston Peters says. “New Zealand and Japan have a strong, shared interest in a free, open and stable Pacific Islands region,” Mr Peters says. “We are pleased to be finding more ways ...
New developments in the heart of North Island forestry country will reinvigorate their communities and boost economic development, Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says. Mr Jones visited Kaingaroa and Kawerau in Bay of Plenty today to open a landmark community centre in the former and a new connecting road in ...
President Adeang, fellow Ministers, honourable Diet Member Horii, Ambassadors, distinguished guests. Minasama, konnichiwa, and good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished guests, it’s a pleasure to be here with you today to talk about New Zealand’s foreign policy reset, the reasons for it, the values that underpin it, and how it ...
Last summer when Matairangi burned, Ginny and Tom stood at the window of their lounge, watching kākā shoot skyward from the burning trees. From the distance, they looked to Ginny like pages torn from books and thrown into a bonfire. It was Tom, voice tight, who told her it was ...
Opinion: The Canadian short story writer Alice Munro – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013 – died in May at the age of 92. Her work was about “the damage people inflict on one another in the name of love”, Deborah Treisman wrote in the New Yorker. ...
This month marks two years since the most powerful telescope ever built sent its first pictures back to earth. From its lofty vantage point, beyond the moon in orbit around the sun, the James Webb Space Telescope was tuned to observe the first stars and galaxies being born soon after ...
Comment: After Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ preview several weeks ago, I had some optimism about the Government’s emissions reduction plan. Now I’ve read the discussion document, that hope has been dashed. How can the Government propose a plan that wants to take New Zealand taxpayers’ hard-earned money, and spend ...
Christopher Luxon: hurdles The little man from National jumps hurdles in his sleep. He’s quite good at it in his dreams and even though the reality doesn’t quite match up you have to give him credit for getting up every morning and crashing into the very first hurdle of the ...
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It’s true, but I’d like to see what other system he proposes to distribute scarce resources in a fair manner without waste.
As it is our student loan scheme is fuelling far too many diploma mills teaching courses of dubious value to students who should be doing something else.
+1 to this
there are some pretty sketchy course out there (particularly for early school leavers ) that seem to be a rort to hoover up less astute peoples loan entitlements
the “retail” course are the worst, you can end up in SERIOUS debt learning the arcane arts of working in shop !
Are there any other education models overseas that we could perhaps emulate?
Uruguay provides free education through to post grad level and a free laptop for every child in primary education and is rolling out the same for ALL students currently
Population of about 4 million, ——NZ about 4.5 million
GDP 59.201 billion , ——– NZ 181.3 billion
Per capita $17,121 , ——— NZ Per capita $40,481
hmmmm
Per capita $17,121 , ——— NZ Per capita $40,481.
Woo hoo, in your face Uruguay! Go All Blacks! No, wait…
Refer the famous photo of President Mujica of Uruguay, quietly waiting his turn for treatment in A&E.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BrTDyJZCYAAJjvm.jpg:medium
I would go gay for Jose !!
2 years living at the bottom of a well for your beliefs must give you some SERIOUS focus !
I would say given their current level of development, that such a policy for Uruguay is sensible – education will be a primary way to lift the productivity of their country. NZ isn’t in the same position.
Also comparing total country population isn’t as important as comparing the number of students taking up these offers, or the types of education being offered, and if you want to get really detailed, the quality of the education (best measured by international ratings of universities and/or achievements of university professors).
how is the quality of education measured by an international ranking based in no small part on research output?
getting back to full employment would see a drop in tertiary numbers.
what do you consider Uruguays current level of development Lanth
I own a small property there, have spent a lot time there both rural and urban and consider it many ways more developed than NZ ( in the areas in i consider important to be fair)
Actually, NZ is in the same position. Due to not doing the investment to develop our economy needed over the last thirty years and giving that money to the rich instead we have increasing poverty and and an economy overly dependent upon a single sector.
Then we throw in the fact that the low hanging fruit in science and development has gone we actually need more students to work cooperatively to push ever more innovation.
How does your argument deal with the fact that Germany does not charge for tertiary education?
Brazil does as well, and pays generous university scholarships. The only problem there is that the public schools, which the poor go to, are so bad that the privately schooled rich are far more likely to pass the tertiary entry exams. Hence most of the tertiary budget goes to kids who don’t need it. Friends of mine are trying to change this by preparing poorer kids better for the entrance exams.
I’d favour a system where university was basically free, and with useful scholarships for those who deserved them, but with more stringent entry requirements than at present. This could easily be paid for by a slightly higher tax rate on those who have already gone through university, such as myself and Paula Bennett. Alternatively, graduates could be bonded to perform community tasks for a couple of years after graduating. Once enough people realise education is not a commodity to be sold to individuals, just like a massage or a packet of biscuits, we’ll find a way.
Scotland
Free tertiary education
“Are there any other education models overseas that we could perhaps emulate?”
“Bonding” is another alternative for occupations that provide public essential services: doctors, nurses, teachers, etc.
Personal example: In return for a free education you agree to spend 4 years working in a designated area of extreme need (rural or poor area). We had a lovely doctor and his young family serve in our rural town. 20 years later they are still there. They decided it was a much better lifestyle than working 60 hours a week in a flash suburb trying to retire the huge debt a medical education requires.
Maybe you could read some of what Chomsky has written about the subject of education over the last forty years.
Right wingers believe the neoliberal doctrine.
There is no alternative for them, as their mantra dictates.
So they don’t read other ideas.
Sadly, they don’t read, full stop. Lanthanide wouldn’t have expressed his bewilderment like he did if he had bothered to read some of Chomsky’s voluminous writing about education.
Agreed.
Just repeat what they hear on TV.
La
“students who should be doing something else” – what precisely? Emigration? Crime? There are not so many jobs around these days for those without any formal education. Apprenticeships are rare, and polytechs are being squeezed, so many end up at private institutes that milk them for all they can get.
Languishing on a benefit isn’t socially beneficial, but has better income than study and doesn’t have to be repaid. OAB links show ways in which scarce resources have been put into furthering education for collective good (in Germany & Finland – I think Denmark also has no fees/ loans). The NZ politicians who instituted the high fee/ loan system (Goff & Smith in their forefront) had their own educations paid for by the state at a time when the country was monetarily poorer.
Education is most valuable when given away. It is the wealth of nations.
““students who should be doing something else” – what precisely? Emigration? Crime? There are not so many jobs around these days for those without any formal education. Apprenticeships are rare, and polytechs are being squeezed, so many end up at private institutes that milk them for all they can get.”
There should be more jobs, more apprenticeships, better funded and more polytech courses.
At no point am I blaming the students, who are the victims of these diploma mills. I simply said they should be doing something else.
“Languishing on a benefit isn’t socially beneficial, but has better income than study and doesn’t have to be repaid. ”
Going to a diploma mill, getting a student loan and then ending up in a crappy dead-end / low-wage job, or no job at all, isn’t much better.
What the hell, Lanth. What “scarce resources” are you talking about here. What “waste” are you talking about here?
Are children hungry in NZ because there is a “scarcity” of food? Are pensioners in NZ cold because there is a “scarcity” of power? Are hospitals and schools understaffed because of a “scarcity” of nurses and teachers? Get a grip.
What Chomsky is pointing to is a bloody simple idea: the economic system is currently set up as a system of social control and rationing. High controls and strict rationing on the bottom 90% of society. Absolutely minimal controls and rationing on the top 10% of society (but especially the top 0.1%).
FFS man, can you not see the real “waste” which is happening day to day is letting Kiwis rot in a toxic mix of idleness and ignorance?
+1
We cannot afford the rich.
“We cannot afford the rich.”
Damn right!
In 1789 the French came to the same conclusion.
“What the hell, Lanth. What “scarce resources” are you talking about here. What “waste” are you talking about here?”
I was talking very generally about market-based economies, where the market puts prices on goods and services, which acts as a self-balancing system to minimise waste. Nothing more.
In this particular case, making education completely free leads to waste in the form of people doing study that doesn’t benefit themselves or society at large, hence my further statement that we already have too many diploma mills in this country.
I think you’ll find that there’s more actual waste in the level of unemployment – a level of unemployment that economists say is normal for market based economies. Even education that doesn’t seem to benefit society benefits society as it increases critical thinking levels. And free education means that those people could always go off and get one of those useful degrees later.
Why don’t you check out your nearest council landfill Lanth, to see how deeply mistaken you are.
Bullshit. The level of fees charged for education have NOTHING to do with the poor design and quality of some tertiary offerings. That’s down to the lack of judgement, purpose, public service values and vision of the supposedly experienced senior management and PhD qualified heads of those “educational institutions.”
And its down to the corporatisation of education: where the only subject areas valued are the ones which help commercial enterprises make more money.
“Why don’t you check out your nearest council landfill Lanth, to see how deeply mistaken you are.”
Hmm, that is a good point. Certainly the profit margin drives companies to make products with built-in obsolescence, which can only be seen as ‘waste’ in the grand scheme of things. I guess that’s a large part of the contribution for why we aren’t all working 10-15 hours a week with lots of leisure time: if the products we bought actually lasted as long as they could/should, we’d have less need of money and less need to work, as well as less work needing to be done.
But in general it is true. For example, in winter, the supply of summer vegetables goes down, pushing the prices up, reducing demand and ensuring that production of winter vegetables is favoured, reducing mis-allocation of resources on summer vegetable crops, etc.
“And its down to the corporatisation of education: where the only subject areas valued are the ones which help commercial enterprises make more money.”
I don’t really have a problem with fine arts degrees, or BAs etc.
My beef is with the private education providers, of which there are huge numbers, who promise things like great careers in IT if you just go study with them… who place you in a call-centre tech support job for an ISP.
Your case by case reasoning is excellent Lanth, but your general case reasoning is highly suspect. I think that is a function of you applying orthodox economic decision making frameworks to areas they are not valid for i.e. 90% of society.
The diploma mills exist precisely because the government hands out student loans to pay the exorbitant fees. If education were free, they’d disappear.
Er, no, education is not “free”, it’s just that the state pays for it.
The difference between “free education” and what we have now, is that you eventually have to pay for the cost of the education yourself, but on an interest-free term (unless you leave the country).
This simply means that instead of going to a diploma mill, getting a crappy bit of paper and a $5k loan, you’d go to the diploma mill and get a crappy bit of paper.
Nope. Then the government would be paying money to the diploma mill. At the moment they are lending it to the students. What they lend out, they get back.
And thanks for telling me that free education is paid by our taxes.
Prior to the neoliberal “reforms” of the ’80s and ’90s, higher education in NZ was free. We hardly need another system.
To answer your question though, Noam Chomsky has been an anarchist his whole life. An explanation of anarchism or communism would be beyond the scope of this discussion, but you can read some of Chomsky’s thoughts on anarchism and student debt here.
what is your definition of dubious value?
you can easily find out. he has written alot in the past few decades on it.
You also probably get less innovation and entrepreneurship because you are coming out of Tech or Uni already saddled with debt and staring down the barrell of an enormous mortgage to get onto the property ladder. The Atlantic Monthly recently ran an article here http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/10/the-disruption-myth/379348/2/ about the slowing pace of innovative disruption and the establishment of new businesses in the US. Gee, do you think a $100,000 debt for your degree might be a factor??
Unnecessary education – demanded by employers and government scourges you to get it. Students are suffering from what they call credential-inflation. How to cut this out? Break through that system of requiring students to have full skills before you hire them. Encourage employers to train staff on the job. And then encourage them in a system where you work your way up, get seniority and better pay. That implies that employers want to keep staff on of course. But at present most want to be able to go to the shelf and pick up a barbie or ken doll, wind it up and put it on the shop floor smiles, arms and legs all working perfectly.
So they demand students spend their own money on the perhaps of getting a job for which they may apply numerous times and never even get the courtesy of a photocopied acknowledgment with their name written in the square at the top.
Employers and the whole shonky right wing approach has whipped away. employment, Also the loss of jobs providing jobs that led on to other jobs for NZ that would give us a healthy economy.
Education is now the Land of Oz where you go and pay for magic employment dust which you try to spread around, sometimes successfully. Lecturers noticed once the fees became a major expense, students limited what they wanted to learn to ensure they could pass their papers. The passing was important, the cost was a burden. Not getting a higher education. And for government education gets you off the unemployment statistics, that it must keep at a certain level on the OECD list of countries they are helping to do over, I mean renovate.
We’ve had The Age of Enlightenment which apparently ended at the start of the 1800s. So do we have the De-Enlightenment now.? The Age of Murky Darkness or The New Dark Ages with the religion of money defining everything? Why don’t we continue with the old enlightened ideas now? What is so wrong with following the prescription?
The Age of Enlightenment (or simply the Enlightenment or Age of Reason) was a cultural movement of intellectuals beginning in late 17th-century Western Europe emphasizing reason and individualism rather than tradition.[1] It spread across Europe and to the United States, continuing to the end of the 18th century. Its purpose was to reform society using reason, to challenge ideas grounded in tradition and faith, and to advance knowledge through the scientific method. It promoted scientific thought, skepticism, and intellectual interchange.[2] The Enlightenment was a revolution in human thought. This new way of thinking was that rational thought begins with clearly stated principles, uses correct logic to arrive at conclusions, tests the conclusions against evidence, and then revises the principles in the light of the evidence. wikipedia.
edited.
As the countries that aren’t infested with right wing education policy continue to leave us behind, and get all the best investment opportunities, the policy will fail and fail and fail, while wingnuts wail and wail and wail, and cling even harder to their failure.
It’s happening now.
+11111
Noam Chomsky has hit the education nail on the head….and Cuba is a case in point ( the true story you never heard from the USA):
For a long time Cuba has been one of the leading countries as regards education in Central and South America…due to widely available , affordable/free high quality state education
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Cuba
“Following the 1959 revolution, the Castro government nationalized all educational institutions, and created a system operated entirely by the government…..
Education expenditures continue to receive high priority, as Cuba spends 10 percent of its central budget on education, compared with 4 percent in the United Kingdom and just 2 percent in the United States, according to UNESCO.[6]…
In 1995, the literacy rate was 96%. This was second after Argentina of thirteen Latin American countries surveyed…
Cuba has 47 universities and total university enrollment is approximately 112,000 citizens….All higher education institutions are public.
Cuba is a world leader in the education and training of doctors…it turns out many , many doctors. As the Michael Moore documentary on USA health System ‘SICKO’ graphically and ironically pointed out Cuban public health care is vastly superior to that in USA..
In fact the Cubans even train doctors who cant afford to be trained in their own countries….”In 1999 a program was implemented to attract students to study medicine in Cuba from less privileged backgrounds in the United States, Britain and Latin American, Caribbean, and African nations.[27] Cuba currently hosts 3432 medical students from 23 nations studying in Havana.[28]
However, Cuba has also provided state subsidized education to foreign nationals under specific programs, including U.S. students who are trained as doctors at the Latin American School of Medicine. The program provides for full scholarships, including accommodation, and its graduates are meant to return to the US to offer low-cost healthcare.”…
I spent 3 months in Cuba 2 years ago. I stayed with a local family who make jokes about Michael Moore’s docos – it was apparently filmed in a “dollar hospital” which is for foreigners or the communist elite. Sure, there are lots of doctors, but drugs are hard to come by and unaffordable for the majority that try to get by on the average Cuban wage (about $30 USD a month). Almost everyone I met dealt on the black market just to get by and I met very few people who had anything positive to say about the Cuban Government.
Not a system to emulate in my opinion.
well as you probably know Cuba has been under an economic embargo by the USA for years …so you can hardly blame Cuba for the lack of medicines or standard of living…considering the effects of this embargo on a small country it is amazing Cuba has survived at all
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Cuba
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_Cuba
http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3155421&Itemid=1
….just as USA had Iraq under sanctions 1990- 2003
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq
There are two parts to the student debt. Course university fees then the living allowance loans of about $150 per week which is claimed by those who are not living at home. The latter are the crunch items which raise the total to huge heights.
free broad humanities (philosophy, history, languages, arts, classics etc) based undergrad degree first then specialise into higher levels once you have learned to think widely and understand historical and cultural perspectives.
Loans and debt aside, when university students are almost entirely from the middle class, their world views are never seriously challenged, and so conservatism/orthodoxy deepens at an intergenerational level.
It’s no coincidence that student based activism spiked in the 60s when a fair proportion of students were from working class backgrounds. The prospect of debt and an inability to access ‘lifeboat funds’ from parents when going through University, more or less excludes the working class these days.
Just thought it worth mentioning.
+100 Bill…and the cost of tertiary education and the difficulty in finding jobs and paying back loans for university education …..also channels students into strictly vocational degrees
…again less time for thinking and reading and researching and learning and critical thinking about deep philosophical , psychological, political, social , religious and historical issues
….university education is being undermined from within as well as from without
…university education is becoming training for a professional vocation rather than the education of the whole person…and society as well as the individual is the loser
“when university students are almost entirely from the middle class, their world views are never seriously challenged, and so conservatism/orthodoxy deepens at an intergenerational level.”
Yup. From personal experience, I’ll agree with you there Bill. My unconventional academic path has led me to ‘surprise’ fellow students and mentors with the way I understand how societal structures are perceived and operate compared with the way they treat societal structures as uncontested best practice that people must fit into
Well worth mentioning Bill.
Bill, not sure about your assertion that university students were more representative of working class backgrounds (in NZ?) than these days.
Small sample etc etc but in 1969 NZ History tutorial of some 15 students, asked about our class origins, all but one were middle class. We believed then that university was the prerogative of the middle class.
Have you some research to indicate otherwise?
We middle class students of the late sixties sure knew about student activism though- Harewood bases, Omega, Vietnam, Peace Power and Politics in Asia, student representation at Uni. I’m the son of a grocer- “petit bourgeois” was my answer to the question. I spent very little time studying in 1968 failing all but one of my units, but spent a lot of time challenging the values of the day.
My sense is that more working class folk are getting to Uni as numbers increase and more degrees as a percentage are awarded to attendees, or are working class numbers diminishing? Could be wrong though.
The Death of American Universities
And we see it here as well as National make more corporate changes to our universities.
David Harvey makes the same point as Chomsky , but about mortgages. people with mortgages don’t srrike. they also tend to develop certain attitudes like cynical detachment.. having no considerable assets and being Christian have a complementary effect on me – both things free me up to be experimental with my life. currently I’m doing business and I feel totally free to charge people what I think is fair, instead of maxing out my fees according to market rates, which in my line of work are desperately, corrosively cynical. so, that’s a wonderful liberty that I have. also, following Christ requires you to be a bit cavalier about conventional wisdom. like eagleton says, if it doesn’t get you killed it appears that you have some explaining to do. on the path of radical integrity are deep suffering and profound peace.
Another BIIIIIIIIG opportunity for the Labour Party to shine with some sensible policy huh?
But will they/won’t they?
Nope, they won’t as they’re far too busy trying to balance the books by not raising taxes.
Amen Draco,
They dress up with a partial conscience when they think it may benefit them – couldn’t bring myself to vote for them this election and I’ve been left my whole life.
Check out this guy burning his worthless college degree, law degree, licence to practise law and computer science degree at the 30 minute mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kC_RYgkkmcM
All this guy has got round his neck is a millstone of debt.
Student debt made the Herald last weekend.
Verity Johnson writes..
“Students are increasingly worried about money. Not, “how many boxes of wine can I buy with all the change under the sofa?” But, “how will my degree get me a stable future career that repays my gaping debts?” This manifests itself in the serious, grey and practical pall that has settled over us students. I don’t blame us students. The message behind universities has changed historically.
Once, uni was about knowledge. Now we’re told to pick sensible degrees that will get us a sensible job with a sensible salary.
University is supposed to be about stretching your mind. This model makes it about your stretched pocket.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11336749
Hi Students, join the Nact party, suck up now and avoid your student debt, otherwise this awaits you:
Could’nt happen in NZ, now could it. Thats what ya voted for….debt slavery:
http://etfdailynews.com/2014/10/09/why-the-student-loan-debt-crisis-is-out-of-control/
The following are 18 sobering facts about the unprecedented student loan debt crisis in the United States…
#1 According to the Wall Street Journal, the class of 2014 is “the most indebted ever“…http://blogs.wsj.com/numbers/congatulations-to-class-of-2014-the-most-indebted-ever-1368/
#2 In 1994, less than half of all college graduates left school with student loan debt. Today, it is over 70 percent.
#3 Approximately 15 percent of graduate and professional school students leave school with student loan debt balances in the six figures.
#4 At this point, student loan debt has hit a grand total of 1.2 trillion dollars in the United States. That number has grown by about 84 percent just since 2008.
#5 According to the Pew Research Center, nearly four out of every ten U.S. households that are led by someone under the age of 40 is paying off student loan debt right now.
#6 The median net worth of young households that have student loan debt is 20 percent lower than the median net worth of young households that do not have any student loan debt and that are led by someone with only a high school education.
#7 Among college educated people, the median net worth of young households that do not have student loan debt is seven times higher than the median net worth of young households that do have student loan debt.
#8 In 2008, approximately 29 million Americans were paying off student loan debts. Today, that number has ballooned to 40 million.
#9 Since 2005, student loan debt burdens have absolutely exploded while salaries for young college graduates have actually declined…
#10 According to CNN, 260,000 Americans with a college or professional degree made at or below the federal minimum wage last year.
#11 Even after accounting for inflation, the cost of college tuition increased by 275 percent between 1970 and 2013.
#12 Debt for law school students has risen dramatically over the past decade or s
#13 Last year it was being reported that 34.9 percent of all student loan borrowers under the age of 30 are at least 90 days behind on their student loan payments.
sobering…and the USA model is the one New Zealand is following….screwing its own youth!…
The debt New Zealand is putting on young people for tertiary education is a disgrace!
….It should have been a major Election issue!
Labour did nothing and crushed the one party that was prepared to make Tertiary Education free…..the Mana/Internet Party
…guess where all your youth votes have gone Labour?…they are NOT voting for you!
Chooky Shark Smile, you mentioned
“Labour did nothing and crushed the one party that was prepared to make Tertiary Education free…..the Mana/Internet Party”
Actually, that comment, made me get off my lazy arse and do just a little research.
Yeah, gutting, old Roger Me Now Nomics helped put the wedge in a while back, then down track, labour removed the interest on student loans. National introduced EFTs system and has been quielty removing funding from Universities since (are they not dropping in rankings?). So, changes were made to fund the increased projections of students entering Universities. But I really do not trust any of the powers that be, that further changes (taxes) will eventually turn up.
That aside, here as some good links (which informed me from both sides of the fence): Again, however, we do seem to be following the USA and GB, and their projections are not looking pretty.
So a recipe for wage slave =
Average UK student debts ‘could hit £53,000’
https://www.bbc.com/news/education-14488312
+
NZ house prices among world’s highest
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/10450981/NZ-house-prices-among-worlds-highest
+
Who gets the best jobs (the rich kids of course)
http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-previews/who-gets-the-best-jobs—107947
If you read these links, it may help balance the picture (for the left or right view)
1. Since April 2006, student borrowers living in New Zealand have not had to pay any interest.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/8197323/Bitter-pill-should-be-swallowed
2. It was National that introduced the “bums on seats” funding model, in which universities were funded based on the number of equivalent full-time students (EFTS) enrolled.
Throughout National’s nine years in power, government funding of the tertiary education sector steadily decreased. Universities resorted to rising student fees to cover deficits, a trend that still persists at universities across the country. The election of Labour in 1999 did not stem the tide of changes to the way tertiary education is funded in this country.
http://salient.org.nz/features/a-short-history-of-tertiary-education-funding-in-new-zealand
( a good summary of Universities and costs up to 2009). Aside it was National who did not want to touch the topic of taxing students… political expedience only… not love.
3. Total student loan debt sits at $13 billion, and is projected to hit $14b – the size of the annual health budget – by 2015.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/budget-2013/8683203/Student-loan-defaulters-to-face-border-arrest
4. Heres the biggest for last (but remember, there is no mention of DOL studies and if people end up in their intended field etc). As with many stats, there are positives and Negatives:
http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/series/2555/student-loan-scheme-annual-report-2013
Student Loan Scheme Annual Report 2013
Publication Details
The Student Loans Scheme Annual Report 2013 provides information on the scheme and those who borrowed from it in 2012, as well as the financial schedules for the year to 30 June 2013. The information in the report aligns with the outcomes framework developed by the agencies that manage and administer the scheme. Key findings in the report are:
The nominal value of loan balances was $13,562 million as at 30 June 2013.
201,187 students borrowed from the loan scheme in 2012 (73 percent of eligible students).
As at 30 June 2013, 710,000 people had a student loan with Inland Revenue.
The median repayment time for those who left study in 2009 and remained in New Zealand was 6.7 years.
Author(s): Ministry of Education.
Date Published: December 2013
Please consider the environment before printing the contents of this report.
This report is available as a download (please refer to the ‘Downloads/Links’ inset box, top right). This inset box also has links to related publications and information that may be of interest. Please consider the environment before printing.
Highlights
Student Loan Scheme portfolio
As at 30 June 2013:
The nominal value of loan balances was $13,562 million. (Refer to chapter 4.0.)
The carrying value of the loan scheme – calculated using International Financing Reporting Standards – was $8,288 million. (Refer to chapter 4.0.)
The carrying value ratio increased from 63.9 percent of the nominal value to 61.1 percent of the nominal value ratio. (Refer to chapter 4.1.)
The fair value of the loan scheme was approximately $8,298 million. (Refer to chapter 4.0.)
The cost of lending is forecast to increase to 40 cents per dollar for the period 1 July 2013 to 31 December 2013. It is forecast to increase to 42 cents for each dollar lent by 2016/17. (Refer to chapter 4.2)
710,968 people had a student loan with Inland Revenue for collection. (Refer to chapter 3.2.)
Since the loan scheme began:
Students have borrowed a total of $18,520 million. (Refer to chapter 3.1.)
$8,125 million has been collected in loan repayments. (Refer to chapter 3.3.)
More than 374,000 loans have been fully repaid. (Refer to chapter 3.3.)
During 2012/13:
$1,150.7 million in loan repayments was received by Inland Revenue and the Ministry of Social Development, $274.2 million more than last year. (Refer to chapter 5.3)
Outcomes
Research shows that people with tertiary qualifications have lower unemployment, higher incomes and increased wellbeing. (Refer to chapter 2.2.)
The number of domestic students in tertiary education in 2012 was 375,000 compared with 245,000, the number enrolled in 1994. (Refer to chapter 1.1.)
The participation rate for Māori of all ages was 14.6 percent in 2012, down from 15.1 percent in 2011. The participation rate of Pasifika students in 2012 was 11.4 percent, down from 11.5 percent in 2011. (Refer to chapter 1.1.)
The total number of qualifications completed in 2012 was 143,000 by 126,000 domestic students, an increase of 2.7 percent from 2011. (Refer to chapter 1.1.)
The total number of qualifications completed in the New Zealand tertiary system in 2012 was 162,000. (Refer to chapter 1.1.)
About borrowing in 2012
201,187 students (73 percent of eligible students) borrowed from the loan scheme. (Refer to chapter 3.1)
Of these 54,836 were new borrowers (based on provisional Ministry of Social Development data), representing 27 percent of all borrowers. (Refer to chapter 3.1.)
The average amount borrowed was $7,822 and the median amount borrowed was $6,9889. (Refer to chapter 3.1.)
Borrowers
Between 1997 and 2012:
57 percent were female. (Refer to chapter 3.2.)
48 percent were European, 22 percent were Māori, 12 percent were Asian and 9 percent were Pasifika. (Refer to chapter 3.2.)
47 percent had studied at non-degree level, 35 percent at bachelors level and 9 percent at postgraduate level. (Refer to chapter 3.2.)
As at 30 June 2013:
The average loan held by Inland Revenue was $19,076 and the median loan balance was $13,307. (Refer to chapter 3.2.)
57 percent of repayments were collected through the PAYE tax system in the 2012/13 tax year. (Refer to chapter 3.3.)
Repayment times
The median repayment time for those who finished study in 2003 was 7.2 years. (Refer to chapter 3.4.)
The median repayment time for those who finished study in 2006 is expected to be 7.5 years. (Refer to chapter 3.4.)
The median repayment time for those who finished study in 2009 is expected to by 7.3 years. (Refer to chapter 3.4.)
The median repayment time for those who left study in 2009 and remained in New Zealand was 6.7 years. (Refer to chapter 3.4.)
4.
Watching my daughters do exactly as Chomsky predicts, through sheer exhaustion (though they did come out and sign wave for Labour, and did hold hope for a while before the election):
-trying to work (in ever more scarce part time jobs) around impossible timetables, not announced until the last minute
-studying with increasing sense of detachment from reality by universities having to assume “corporate” competitive models
-educational inflation means they have to do masters, so studying goes on…and on… and costs more and more….
And then the job market is so tight you need contacts to get a foot in the door, if we are honest, so how to pay off student debt, they can’t afford to work overseas as the debt increases even more.
The logical conclusion to this? Only the rich (but not necessarily the bright and motivated) will have a decent education…hey just like the old days!!