Ministry of Education Knows Living Cost Policy is Incoherent

4 APRIL 2017

The Ministry of Education has known for a decade that there is no rationale behind its living cost policy, according to evidence released to the newly formed Aotearoa Students’ Alliance under the Official Information Act. The response shows the Ministry's own reports in 2007 that the current living cost policy has “no rationale”.

Jack Close, spokesperson for the Aotearoa Students’ Alliance says: “In 2007 the Ministry of Education offered two options for living costs policies: the first, $165 a week, a figured plucked out of thin air and adjusted yearly to match the Consumer Price Index; and the second, a policy which tied living costs to the highest paying student allowance, $183.61 and adjusted yearly in the same manner. The first policy was chosen.”

“The Consumer Price Index has crept only 4.3 percent in the last five years, while rent prices have increased by a gruelling 31.6 percent. That means the price of a 140-dollar room in 2012 now costs 44 dollars more. Meanwhile, living costs – the loan which students are expected to pay for ‘day-to-day’ expenses – have increased by a measly 6 dollars.

“Students aren’t even able to cover their own rent under the current living costs policy, let alone pay for food or power. For students at three of New Zealand’s biggest universities, average rent prices far exceed StudyLink’s petty and callously misguided living costs payments.

"Students now know that the Government isn’t just ignorant to the welfare of students, but that it has actively disregarded rational policy in favour of 'administrative simplicity' and cost cutting."

The Aotearoa Students’ Alliance calls on Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment Minister Hon. Paul Goldsmith to urgently review his ministry’s living costs policy, in the face of a student welfare crisis ushered in by his own Government’s regulatory and economic mismanagement.

A copy of the Official Information Act response can be found here.

ENDS

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