And a former Dunedin student living in Queensland called the Government's policy of arresting certain people with overdue student loan payments "kind of dumb''.
The remarks come after Ngatokotoru Puna was arrested at Auckland airport on Monday for failing to pay back more than $130,000 in student loans.
Mr Puna was the first person to be arrested for a student loan repayment-related offence.
Since the arrest, the New Zealand Union of Students' Associations (NZUSA) said it had fielded "a small flurry'' of calls from concerned student debtors living overseas, and from their parents.
The association estimates about 130,000 people with student loans are living overseas, and the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has previously reported about 70% of them are behind on their payments.
Ms Harris, who is acting president of NZUSA, said "we agree people should pay their debts''.
"The issue is [in] it becoming a criminal issue,'' she said.
The large number of people not paying their student loans while living overseas suggested a problem with the repayment scheme, not the former students, Ms Harris said in a press release on Thursday.
"The Government needs to look at [the scheme] before enforcing this draconian measure.''
NZUSA chief executive Alistair Shaw was similarly critical of Mr Puna's arrest, saying it was out of step with what the association had heard from the IRD about its policy.
"The IRD have always told us that they would only pursue an arrest warrant essentially if they've got in touch with somebody and the person says ‘I'm not going to pay you'.''
The case of Mr Puna did not seem to have met that threshold, he said.
When contacted for comment, an IRD spokeswoman did not confirm or deny Mr Shaw's account of the agency's position was accurate.
But she did say the IRD's power to arrest debtors at the border was "used as a very last resort, and would only follow strenuous efforts to contact the borrower to make repayment arrangements''.
"Student loan borrowers who are having difficulty meeting their obligations should contact Inland Revenue immediately, to work out a repayment plan,'' she said.
"Even if they have ‘gone away', their student loan has not.''
Former Otago Polytechnic student Phil Bell is one of the student debtors who has "gone away''.
She is working as a radiographer in Australia and is facing $26,000 in student debt. Ms Bell was, to a certain extent, sympathetic to the Government's cause.
"The Government needs their money somehow - I guess if they just let them [students go] free, they probably wouldn't pay back [the loans].''
She was planning on paying her own student debts in full.
"I've been budgeting for [the payments], because I know you can get arrested - and I don't want to get arrested.''
But she echoed the students' associations' sentiment - arresting former students for overdue loans did not seem like the best way to go about getting the debts paid.
"They're always talking about brain drain and how people study at home and go overseas and don't come back,'' she said.
"This is just going to prevent people coming back even more, because they know they're going to be arrested.''
