Posts by Kyle Matthews
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But really, it's a bandaid until a fully workable programme on how to actually reduce mounting student debt is found.
I'm not sure how the models would work out, but it would possibly reduce overall debt for about 10 years. It would certainly do a lot to hold it steady.
The current debt repayments will be based on higher average loans, and larger number of debters, than any future debts (because less students will take out loans, and those that do will have lower average loans because of no living cost component).
I'm not sure if it would go down, but until the balance had shifted over about ten years for more 'post change' debtors in the system than 'pre change', people like me with higher loans would be paying back, while less people would be taking out loans.
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The next step for the future will be to raise the repayment threshold. Currently, the government thinks the "private benefit" of tertiary education kicks in at less than the minimum wage. Which is pretty laughable when you think about it.
The 'private benefit' arguments that have flown around about Tertiary Education are a false argument.
The question shouldn't be 'how much private benefit' do people get from tertiary education, but why that's a valid question to be asked.
It's not asked in relation to primary, secondary education, public health care, benefits, various services such as policing, fire service etc, in the public debates. It is only used to argue for, and accepted as an argument by the public in relation to, user pays in tertiary education
The insertion of the "public/private benefit for tertiary education" juxtaposition in the public dialogue will be one of the most significant lasting impacts of the 1990 - 1999 National government. It shows no signs of going away.
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Surely we hate The America's Cup more than V8's ?
I don't think that qualifies as a race any more. Maybe in the 80s...
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And now I've written that, I wonder if the $210 million figure is the additional expenditure, over and above the current amount spent on the loan scheme.
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But seriously, the timing for this is strange, at once cynical and desperate. In the long run it probably won't break the coffers that much, but the real question is whether it's actually worth the risk.
It'll have a much smaller impact upon the coffers than straight-out expenditure.
A lot of the money isn't additional money lost to the government, it's a transfer out of money the government currently lends in the form of student loans, to expenditure in the form of allowances.
There will be more of it, and obviously it will never come back, unlike loans, which eventually do in the most part.
That being said, $210 million is bound to be an under-estimate. In 2006 students borrowed $310 in living costs, and there will be a fair number of students who receive neither an allowance nor a student loan - living off a job, or their parents, etc.
I would guess that the actual cost would be closer to $400 million.
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Ah, and there ya go. Herald is first, that's quick.
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Helen Clark is talking at present - or probably recently finished, at the Otago University Union. Must be close to two thousand people there, I couldn't get close enough to see the room that she was speaking in, let alone see her.
Grant McDougall was inside when I walked past earlier, hopefully he'll report. I understand she'll be making an announcement on student allowances today.
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Remember the during Olympics how the cycling commentator who would always be saying "Now he's riding a X inch wheel which means that for every turn of the pedals...blah blah blah" :)
Yeah. But now they use these new-fangled things called gears. Young folk these days.
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Compared to some of her Act colleagues, Coddingtonswallop was positively gifted.
Currently driving down the National Party electoral vote in Wellington Central for example.
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Kyle: Charles E Wilson may very well have believed that what was good for General Motors was good for the country (or, to be strictly accurate, "What’s good for the country is good for General Motors, and vice versa"). That doesn't make it any more excusable.
Umm. What Stephen said above. Except I'm not higher income. And I wouldn't consider voting National for any reason.