Bradford Out Of Touch

"Max Bradford is totally out of touch if he thinks that the student loan scheme is not forcing graduates overseas and causing a brain drain" said Karen Skinner, Co-President of the New Zealand University Student's Association. "He has also used flawed figures to back up his claim"

"The report that Bradford refers to is a longitudinal study of university students who graduated in 1990. None of the students in this study would have been borrowing under the student loan scheme as it wasn't introduced until 1992. None of these students would have paid the enormous fees that st udents beyond 1990 have been forced to pay. Clearly the situation for students has got considerably worse, with student loan figures skyrocketing" said Ms Skinner

The New Zealand Vice Chancellors Committees Graduate Destination Report of 1997 University graduates shows that 5.1% of the 8100 respondents to the survey were located overseas. Extend that to the 22,459 University graduates in 1997, and you have 1145 graduates overseas. The survey also shows tha t 65% of those graduates were employed full time.

"When you consider that 20% of graduates go onto further study, that is a large proportion of those entering the workforce who are choosing to go overseas." said Ms Skinner

"The fact that Bradford is trying to justify his statement based on 1990 figures shows that this government clearly has no idea what's going on. Student debt is having huge impact on the life decisions of graduates, and on society generally" said Ms Skinner

"We are sick of this government's continual attempts to deny there is a problem rather than dealing with the root of the issue - growing fees and no universal allowances.

"In their time as government National has continually attacked students through funding cutbacks. Their privatisation agenda has completely undermined the entire Tertiary sector.

"The national government has put students, graduates and the Tertiary sector in a disastrous situation. No election bribes by the national government next week will be able to make up for this" concluded Ms Skinner

ENDS

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