Tertiary Education Policy
Daymond Goulder-Horobin
Public
Seen by 14
From looking at the recent proposal I posted it seems that the majority of individuals believe that adding in an optional Loan Living costs on top of a Universal Student Allowance so that the student may chose either to work and study or take the extra loan to focus solely on study.
I believe that as we work on the budget and start constructing it that we may be able to offer a housing subsidy for students living alone or in flats, as Colin England Suggested since they are the ones fronting the rent costs, for example those studying in Auckland.
At the moment I have prioritized the needs as follows
Universal Student Allowance - Take the pressure of students that need to work while studying. Without any attention to parental income.
Loan Living costs on top - Give Students the option to borrow more so that can fully focus on study and not have to worry about work at all, at least during the semester of study. This can be explained more if necessary.
Housing Subsidy - It is clear that students living alone or in a flat struggle to support themselves while those in a parental home should be OK (at least with USA). Therefore an additional entitlement could be put in place, different from the accommodation supplement or an expansion of it.
3 years free education - Eventually at some point we could hope to fully subsidize, support and nurture the education culture in New Zealand, as some would argue to the point where it rivals European countries. However I believe that this should be accounted for later on since in my view the sustainability of students during study is more important that improving welfare after study, (where we assume they will be able to find a job and improve there living standards anyway).
This is my view. Currently Labour wants to enact 3 years of free education first but I believe that it still means that students will struggle during study, they are also paying it with the expected growth in income of New Zealand which means they would be holding everything constant for the next 5 years and doing it instead of proposed tax cuts.
In essence once we breakdown the budget we can see how far we can or should go with improving equity in this sector. For instance perhaps we can fit the first two points and leave the subsidy for later on and so forth. I could also look into Primary/Secondary school education a bit later and gain a position on that but I want to just stick to one thing at a time.
Also just to mention, I don't hold a particular grudge towards Student loan debt and I treat it as an Investment that Students make, for instance mine is pretty high but I know that the current system of paying 12c in a dollar is manageable and I will have a higher quality of life after finishing study. (perhaps there is also room there to reduce payment thresholds and amounts to reduce burden) However I did have to work while studying which affect my focus a bit.
I've also attached the Raw proposal that was on the meetup
What are your thoughts? Do you think the priorities are setup correctly or should we be focused somewhere else?
EDIT: Have thought about making a work placement Compulsory to ensure that work experience is included in the education
Daymond Goulder-Horobin Mon 3 Apr 2017 2:13AM
The Living cost extension is brand new and aims to give students the option to not be pressured into working during a full time study year, even with the universal allowance and potentially a housing subsidy living alone or in a flat will still be quite scarce
For the other parts It prioritizes the list, for instance we would first make room for the universal student allowance. Then implement the living cost extension and so forth. It does suggest that fully paying fees comes later since there is no cost for students holding it.
I did think about the repayment threshold, the original idea is that student pays off the debt by the end of there lifetime. Currently it is 12c in a dollar after $19,084 in income. However this could easily be made stepped. For instance after $20,000 we make it 5c in a dollar, after $40,000 we make it 8c in a dollar and so forth to reduce the burden of it on low income earners, (or at least on graduates starting in an entry level position)
I actually think that many parties (especially Labour) made the mistake that tertiary fees are causing the student hardship and are targeting that first when from what I have seen its the fact that many are in a way forced to work during full time study which both has an impact on there grades as well as there sanity. Its always good to work in the summer to gain work experience however. Something that I'm always told by employers rounds of a CV quite nicely.
Colin England Mon 3 Apr 2017 3:55AM
Its always good to work in the summer to gain work experience however.
I'm a student ATM and have not been able to secure any employment in the field that I'm studying for over the last three years.
Unpaid internships I could have got but I couldn't afford them.
I possibly could have got paid employment in something else but I don't see that as valid experience - especially considering that I've already got such experience.
Daymond Goulder-Horobin Mon 3 Apr 2017 5:15AM
That's a bummer. What field are you studying in, is it full time or part time.
I guess at the very least you do have work experience in itself. Some students finish there degree having not worked anywhere at all and do not have the experience of working in an office environment with coworkers. Therefore also leaving them without any referees to put on there CV.
I think the summer work program the IP already has in place will be focused on helping students get that in place.
Colin England Mon 3 Apr 2017 8:46AM
What field are you studying in, is it full time or part time.
I'm doing a Bachelor in Computer Sciences - focussed on programming.
Thing is, the word on the street is that we're critically short of programmers but very few NZ companies will hire a programmer that doesn't have several years of experience behind them and that is the real problem. Our businesses refuse to build up our local skills and then complain that the skills don't exist in NZ and demand that the government open up our borders to immigrants.
Suzie Dawson Mon 10 Apr 2017 10:45AM
In my experience I would always advise developers not to go to university or do tertiary study but to enter the workforce immediately. Sad but true. 3 years commercial developer experience is enough to earn you $70-80 per hour but 3 years tertiary study will just leave you in debt, broke and jobless. Something definitely needs to change.
Daymond Goulder-Horobin Tue 11 Apr 2017 3:38AM
After 3 years study your left with paying back 12c for every $1 for an amount of time (usually 5-10 years) until its paid back so the idea is that if you can earn roughly 25% more after 3 years versus working experience for 3 years ( more than 12% to make up for lost income whilst studying) then you would be better of studying.
There is the idea of bachelor inflation, that if everyone gets a bachelor's then it will be worth much less, so the more people that study the less it is worth in the end. Perhaps subsidizing degrees that there are shortages in would help, i.e identifying the best degrees that businesses are looking for.
If what you say is true then something is lacking in the computing degree, I've seen that some degrees have mandatory co-ops in which they are required to go on work experience for 3-6 months. For instance Business Degrees at AUT have a required work placement of 3 months to gain it and often leads to a permanent position once they finish it. Perhaps the work placement should be universal.
Daymond Goulder-Horobin Mon 10 Apr 2017 12:34AM
I guess the situation is a Catch 22 in that case, i.e you need work experience to work and work to gain work experience. I would say that skills can come from both working and studying but I guess they are after certain types of skills that can only come from working. We would need to work out how to incentivize firms to hire staff fresh out of education, without making them work for less if possible. Summer internships would help and graduate programs are somewhat effective for the top students.
It feels like businesses aren't really planning for the long term in that scenario. For instance a few decades down the line firms would eventually be forced to hire staff with little experience in there specialist field (If we assume this is a global problem). An extreme example but an eventuality if all firms behave like what you describe.
Daymond Goulder-Horobin Thu 4 May 2017 2:25AM
Updated to include thoughts regarding making a work placement compulsory across most Undergraduate Degrees. This would give individuals work experience alongside a good education. Maybe a Minimum of three months or something along those lines.
Miriam Mallinder Sat 20 May 2017 3:39AM
@daymondgoulderhorobin ... how do we pay for it?
Martyn · Fri 31 Mar 2017 8:44AM
I like it. I don't fully understand it but the stuff I do understand seems good.
How does this mesh with the current educational policy that we have already?