No more fees-free

Fees-free study for tertiary students will be scrapped in this year’s budget, reports Julia Gabel for the Herald.. First announced by Winston Peters on Friday and soon after confirmed by finance minister Nicola Willis, the fees-free scheme currently allows for those in their final year of study to have up to $12,000 of their course fees covered by the government.

Willis confirmed this year will be the last year students can access the scheme, which has cost about $350m per year.

Greens promise to bring it back

Students studying a three-year bachelor’s degree who began study in 2024 or 2025 will no longer receive the $12,000 final year subsidy. Victoria University Students’ Association president told Newstalk ZB’s Francesca Rudkin that those students were feeling “that the rug’s been pulled out from under them”. He argued it would be the “bare minimum” to allow current students to access the scheme once they finished their degrees.