10% fee increase shows Labour’s claims in tatters

10% fee increase shows Labour’s claims in tatters

Massey University’s application for a 10% increase in course fees is an indictment of the Labour government’s fees policy.

Labour has consistently claimed in every forum that its tertiary education policy aims to make it affordable and accessible to all New Zealanders. This claim is in tatters.

The 10% Massey increase comes on top of maximum fee increases of 5% already decided on by both Victoria and Canterbury universities.

(Institutions can themselves increase fees by up to 5% with higher increases needing the approval of the Tertiary Education Commission)

Labour’s supposed fee maximum has now become the minimum.

The fee increases are driven by Labour’s under-funding of tertiary education. Government funding increases for next year amount to just 2.6% - lower than the predicted rate of inflation (around 4%) Institutions therefore are going for maximum increases to make up for the losses in government funding.

Labour claims it has met its obligations to students by ending all interest on student loans for students residing in New Zealand.

However with Labour policy now forcing up fees relentlessly at a much greater rate than inflation the “zero interest” policy is heavily undermined.

QPEC continues to consistently point out the obvious – that tertiary education is an investment in the future and should be provided at no cost to every New Zealand citizen as a right of citizenship.

As QPEC and others have pointed out, the profits from Telecom alone would have provided no cost tertiary education in the 16 years since it was sold.

ENDS

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