Feesfree favours uni over options

WELLINGTON: The Government’s flagship feesfree policy seems to be sending more students to university at the expense of other tertiary education sectors.

Data released to The New Zealand Herald under the Official Information Act shows more than half the feesfree students in 2019 went to university, while 77% of those university students came from decile 6 to 10 schools.

This reflects the impact of the policy from 2018, when more than 20% of firsttime students swung towards university and away from other tertiary sectors, including the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology, which formed with the merging of polytechnics and institutes of technology.

The data, from the Tertiary Education Commission, also shows an increasing rate of failure or withdrawal from students who stayed in tertiary education after their first feesfree year.

It comes at a time when the Government has suspended extending the policy to cover a firsttime tertiary student’s fees for their second year of study, which was meant to come into effect next year depending on the state of the Government coffers.

With rising debt due to the Covid response, the Government has shifted its focus and set aside $320 million in this year’s Budget to make trades training and apprenticeships free for two years.

The commission provided a breakdown of 2019 feesfree students by decile and compared this with 2018 and a comparable group of 18 and 19yearold students in 2017, before feesfree was implemented.

Excluding students where the decile was unknown, decile 6 to 10 students made up 69% of feesfree students in 2019, 68% in 2018 and 62% from the 2017 group.

The proportion of students heading to different education sectors in 2019 was similar to 2018:

52.8% of feesfree students went to university in 2019, compared with 55% in 2018 and only 45.5% of comparable students in 2017.

29.7% were NZ Institutes of Skills and Technology students, compared with 28.5% in 2018 and 33% in 2017.

17% were private training establishment (PTE) students, compared with 16% in 2018 and 20% in 2017

Less than 0.5% went to wananga in 2018 and in 2019, but 1.7% went to wananga in 2017.

Most — 69% — of the feesfree students in 2019 were of European ethnicity, 18% were Maori, 11% Pasifika and 12% Asian.

Education Minister Chris Hipkins declined to comment.

National tertiary education spokeswoman Penny Simmonds said feesfree was a waste of money. ‘‘It simply encouraged more wealthy young people to have a ‘social’ year away from home at a university with little intention of actually completing a qualification.

‘‘It is scandalous in a time of unprecedented debt in New Zealand such a wasteful and untargeted scheme should be allowed to continue.’’

The commission paid $254 million for feesfree enrolments in 2019.

The 2019 failure or withdrawal numbers were practically the same as in 2018.

Of the feesfree students, a quarter of them failed at least one course for both 2018 and 2019; 16.2% withdrew from at least one course in 2019 compared with 15.8% in 2018; and 35.1% of them did not complete at least one course in both years.

But the figures jump for 2018 feesfree students who continued to secondyear tertiary study: 28.2% failed at least one course, 22.8% withdrew from at least one course and 42% did not complete at least one course.

The average course cost in 2019 was $2820, while the median course cost was $1522.

Feesfree was a flagship policy in Labour’s 2017 campaign, but has been beset with issues.

Labour had hoped the policy would encourage wouldbe students from poorer households to get a foot in the door of tertiary study, and boost tertiary numbers overall.

But enrolments fell from 310,000 in 2017 to 305,910 in 2018 and to 303,065 in 2019.

The number of new feesfree students in 2019 was 47,550, slightly up on the 47,105 students in 2018.

In this year’s Budget, Labour shifted the focus of the policy away from participation to reducing the financial burden for firstyear tertiary students.

The commission said it only held decile data for about 80% of feesfree students.

‘‘Not all students in the tertiary education system attended a New Zealand secondary school.

‘‘Therefore care should be taken about drawing any conclusions from the data provided.’’ — The New Zealand Herald

❛ It simply encouraged more wealthy young people to have a ‘social’ year away from home at a

university