Student loans

Georgina Hampton explains how the cuts to student allowances for graduate students are both unfair and damaging to research in New Zealand.

The Government plans to hound student loan holders who have gone overseas leaving big debts behind.

The Government plans to ramp up action against student loan holders who have gone overseas leaving big debts behind.

A survey of New Zealand postgraduate students has found that 40% are thinking of giving up studying because their eligibility for the student allowance is being stripped away next year.

More than 100,000 New Zealanders have overpaid a total of $6.4 million on their student loans.

Notwithstanding the very real benefits and social imperatives of helping students from relatively underprivileged backgrounds through tertiary education, the Government's intention to claw back eligibility for student allowances, and to increase the rate at which interest-free student loans are repaid, does address the problem of steadily rising debt.

Those people with student loans going on their big OE will have to start repaying their loans after just one year and provide Inland Revenue with a contact in New Zealand to help track them down.

Proposed Government moves to rein in the student loan scheme "in a big way" could ultimately harm the Dunedin economy, Otago Polytechnic Students' Association official Mark Baxter warns.

Legal action is to start against Kiwis in Australia who have not made any effort to repay millions of dollars in outstanding student loans.

Legal action is about to begin against hundreds of New Zealand expats who have not made any effort to repay millions of dollars in student loans.