Loan changes impact heavily on Maori: student group

Maori will be hit hard by a plan to restrict older people's access to student loans, a Maori student group says.

The Government has signalled tomorrow's budget will restrict living cost loans for people aged over 55, as part of a broader push to cut costs in the student loan scheme. The move could save about $10 million a year.

Jacqualene Poutu, of the National Maori Tertiary Students' Association, said today that restricting older people's access to loans would "impact heavily on Maori students".

She took issue with Mr Joyce's comments that older students did not have much of their working life left to repay loans.

"A lot of them are the number one breadwinner for their mokos (grandchildren), not just the kids. So we've got to give them a chance, otherwise you're just going to add to the dole queue."

Ms Poutu said Maori unemployment was the worst since World War 2.

Figures released this month showed the Maori unemployment rate increased from 15.5 percent to 16.1 percent in the March quarter, which was much higher than the overall unemployment rate of 6.6 percent.

Those people should not be locked out of education, Ms Poutu said.

"They'd just be on the dole, so more people can moan about how we don't get a job," she said.

"Open up the door so that they can go and learn and up-skill and be relevant."

Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce said today that he did not think Maori students would be worse off than others under the change.

"I don't believe so, but I think it's important that the taxpayer is able to be confident that the Government is getting the loans back over time if at all possible."

The Government was writing off more than 70 percent of the money loaned to people aged over 55, he said.

"The likelihood of them having the opportunity to repay the loan through their working lives is much harder, and I think it's important that we get that balance right," Mr Joyce said.

The Government was not proposing to stop loans to people over 55, but there were some aspects of the scheme that needed changing, including living costs.

Mr Joyce said part-time study and student allowances could be an option for some people.

"There are different ways you can do it without actually going into the full student loan for living costs as well."

The Human Rights Commission yesterday said the change could potentially be unlawful discrimination, but Mr Joyce said he was satisfied the change was consistent with the Bill of Rights Act.