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Ryan Bridge: What was the point in Fees Free? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Reading this story this morning about fees free, you've got
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: to wonder how the policy got through the Boffins and
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Wellington in the first place. It has, by all accounts,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: failed to achieve its objectives. Did we see floods of
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: people charging into lecture halls and studying at university? No?
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Did we see loads of poorer students benefiting? No? What
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: did it cost us? Again? Two point six billion dollars
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: was the policy costing three and a half million last
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: year alone. That's one and a half brand new Dunedin hospitals.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: In case you're interested, and this is what it got us,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: No increase in participation. Two hundred and thirty students from
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: poor schools were helped. This is last year. That is
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: one point three percent. A whopping seventy percent of the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: kids who had their UNI fees paid for up to
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: twelve thousand dollars each were from above average socioeconomic schools.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: They were the wealthier kids, did they No. I've always
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: backed the interest free student loan idea because you can
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: borrow and you don't have to stress about the interest
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: piling up. Then you can work hard to pay it
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: down once you finish. But clearly fees free was too
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: much of a free lunch, not enough discipline or focus
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: in its spending. Now, the problem is that Winston and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: National have kept this policy alive. They've just changed it
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: to the final year of study instead of the first
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: year of study. The idea is that it'll encourage students
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: to finish their education, to finish their degrees. The problem
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: it's not doing that either. There's no evidence that it's
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: doing that either. So after all of that said and done,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: you've got to ask yourself, with such a high price tag,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: is the whole thing worth having at all? For more
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to News
• 1:50
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• 1:53
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