If you are a student in New Zealand there exists a magic number. Or, rather, two magic numbers. If you live at home this number is $82,953.82, or if you are away from home the number is $89,936.68. Congratulations if your combined parental income is less than this! It means that you have just gained $167.83 of student allowance for every week at university and, to make your grand prize even better, you’ll get another $38 dollars accommodation benefit each week. Yes, that is $205.83 that the government will give you for free.
However, if your parents earn more than this figure and you are under twenty-four, then sorry, the best that the government will give you is a loan of $169.51 per week. So you cannot even borrow as much money as those on the other side of the threshold, let alone get it for free. How does the current system account for the discrepancy between one person is on the maximum student loan and another on the maximum allowance and benefit?
How is this acceptable in the capitalist democracy that we live in? Simply because some parents earn more, the government expects them to support their children to the tune of $205.83 a week? How many parents are going to do that? Especially those with multiple children at university. Instead, the current system of loans and allowances leaves the children of parents who earn slightly more with a tougher university experience, as they have both less to spend on food/warmth/flats and end up leaving university with a much larger student loan. This ultimately makes their lives harder with a larger debt hanging over their heads.
Given this inequality, if the government wants to raise more money to pay for the Christchurch earthquake, you would assume that they would look at making changes to the free money they are giving away. Think again; they are talking about putting interest back on student loans. This means that those who already have a larger loan will in fact be more disadvantaged.
I am not completely one-eyed, and accept that some people with less money would have some trouble if they had only $160 odd to live on a week, but why does this make them eligible to receive so much free money (incidentally they can receive it for a maximum of two hundred weeks, so that’s $41,166 for free). Would it not be fairer to allow those who are more disadvantaged to be able to borrow more money rather than just give them government handouts?
So if you are a student and have won the lucky prize of the student allowance and the accommodation benefit, congratulations, enjoy having a better university experience and a better life with less debt.
And for the rest of you, tough luck.
Diatribe - 7
