We aren’t entitled to anything. If we want to go to uni that badly, we should pay for it ourselves because times have changed with AI and we just need more tradies. That’s what I would say if I hated good things.
Three years of fees free, promised by Labour, was designed to address just one of the many barriers that exist between us and further education. Fees Free was then reduced to only covering the first year, and then changed to covering the last year of studies at the beginning of the current government’s term. Each student shaved around $12k off of their course costs, putting a chip in the $16b of collective debt.
It seems counterproductive for any society to have several generations of students with upwards of $40k in debt by the time they finish their study. It inhibits our ability to live and forces hundreds overseas to slightly better conditions.
The Prime Minister was almost right when he said fees free “never achieved its goal” when he attempted to justify its cut. The policy didn’t completely remove the cost barrier to seeking a tertiary education, which was only one fact. There are larger things that make fees free alone not effective: child poverty, housing instability, and the degradation of cultural connectivity. Even when students used to get paid to go to university, entry requirements still favoured people who could afford to invest in better education earlier on.
But when you slash benefits, support, and give mega landlords $3 billion in tax cuts instead of supporting working people living week to week, access to education will continue to suffer. Essential costs have risen 220% over the last two decades while student support payments have risen only 86%. Changing one policy isn’t going to solve the problem.
Cutting fees free is a much broader ideological decision about the value of public education. It should not be viewed as what is going to help individuals succeed or ‘get ahead’, or a battle between trades (‘useful’) and the humanities (‘useless’). That’s the divide and conquer method.
Collectively, students contribute over $1.3 billion a year into Dunedin's economy (not useless). This is about 15% of the city’s gross regional product. Across the Polytech and University, we also make up a substantial chunk of employees – 20% of the population.
Even if this wasn't true, education is a public good and should be treated as such. If we want future innovators and leaders to stay in Aotearoa, then education should come at a price that does not shackle us.
Join us on the 29th at 12pm on Union Lawn to show that we do care, and won’t just let it happen.
