23rd May 2008

Meager tertiary concessions fail students yet again

Green Party Tertiary Education Spokesperson, Metiria Turei, has labeled the meager tertiary concessions in the 2008 budget as ridiculous.

"I don't imagine there will be many students celebrating the extra five dollars a week that they are now allowed to borrow," Mrs Turei says.

"Raising the amount that a student can borrow by five dollars is completely delusional in terms of real life costs, and does nothing to address the structural poverty that the student loan system and the restricted allowances set in place.

"Another concession, increasing the parental threshold by 10 percent, will only benefit the number of students able to get a full allowance by about 1480 people.

"Its great to reduce the age threshold to 24, but it is such an incremental step with such limited additional steps that the relief accorded to students is negligible.

"When Labour took office in 1999, there were 64,292 students eligible for allowances. This package has failed to return eligibility back to 1999 levels, as have all previous Labour budgets."

ENDS

© Scoop Media