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April 19, 2010 | New Zealand may impose a two-year block on student loans for fresh migrants | Wellington: New Zealand Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce has said his Government is planning to implement a two-year stand-down period before new permanent residents
can borrow from the Government to fund tertiary studies here. "You're allowed
to borrow for a student loan the moment you arrive, and that creates some interesting
incentives for people to sign up to tertiary institutions where perhaps they're
not as committed to the country, or not committed to tertiary education as perhaps
others would be," Joyce said. He, however, said the proposed two-year delay would
not affect fee-paying international students. New Zealand is also considering
limiting the period undergraduate students can access interest-free student loans,
possibly to six or seven years, saving around 10 million dollars to 20 million
dollars a year, the New Zealand Herald reports. The Labour Party's tertiary education
spokeswoman, Maryan Street, expressed concern over another proposal outlined by
Joyce to remove the current fee cap on expensive university courses, such as medicine.
"That is a disincentive for people to enrol in those more expensive courses and
they are typically medicine, dentistry, and other science programmes. Those are
exactly the sorts of skills we are going to require as we go forward in New Zealand."
Street said Meanwhile, Pene Delaney, Co-President of New Zealand Union of Students'
Associations, said: "The proposal needed to take into consideration smaller countries,
including the Pacific Island states that don't possess the tertiary infrastructure
to support such studies." |
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