Students are expressing increasing levels of concern about cuts to student allowances next year.
NZUSA’s president Pete Hodkinson told a teacher education summit last week that student teachers were one of the student groups “most dramatically affected” by changes to loans and allowances in the 2012 Budget. “Diversity in teaching is at risk because of the way the system is constructed, debt loads for new teachers and spiralling repayments. In addition the decision to strip eligibility for allowances from all postgraduate students presents both another barrier and another mixed message”.
Architects are worried that their profession will also suffer, as are science students. Fifth-year clinical psychology student Heather Gordon from Canterbury University says she cannot physically fit part time work into her study schedule. She spends every day between 8am and 6pm at university, 60 hours a week in her studies.
“I worked between 20 and 30 hours a week my whole undergraduate career,” Heather Gordon told the Christchurch Press.
The Press reports that a student working a minimum-wage job at $13.50 an hour before tax would need to work at least 20 hours a week to compensate for the $240 weekly student allowance, which will disappear next year.