Auckland and Wellington students say they should get more student allowance than those in regions

Friday, 20 July 2018

Auckland students say they should get more student allowance than those in regions

Auckland and Wellington tertiary students are calling for their allowance payments to be boosted due to high living costs in the cities.

The push comes after Stuff revealed rental prices in Wellington were forcing university students to live in Wairarapa and spend four hours commuting, and those enrolled at Auckland institutions had moved as far away as Otago to save money.

Students say the $50 a week increase to student allowances and living cost loans, and $20 boost to the accommodation supplement the Government rolled out earlier this year, had helped them make ends meet but was barely enough to live comfortably.

Auckland student Tessa Rooney-Broadbent, 19, says it's unfair the student allowance isn't scaled to the cost of living in cities.

According to Trade Me Property, weekly rents in Auckland rose by $20 on average in the six months to May this year to $550, whereas the national median rent of $475 did not change.

* The new normal of students working jobs, on top of full time study

* Student allowance and living cost rises come in at $200m a year

Melissa Zhu, 24, says increasing the student allowance for Aucklanders makes sense due to the high cost of living.

* One in four Kiwi millennials say their budgeting skills are 'excellent': new research**

Optometry student Melissa Zhu, 24, said while the $50 a week increase, which brought her living cost loan payments to $231 per week, 'definitely helped', it was not keeping up with the cost of living in Auckland.

'I think for other parts of the country this amount is very reasonable.

'You can live a pretty decent life in Dunedin for example with this amount of money because rent is cheaper. Auckland is starting to come to a point where even if it's $300 or so a week it might not be enough,' Zhu said.

Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association president Marlon Drake said the $50 increase to student allowances had filled a gap between the previous allowance and rising living costs.

Aucklanders say they deserve more student allowance than those in the regions because the cost of living is higher in the city.

'I wouldn't say it's more money in the pocket of the students but it's certainly helping students put food on the table. Ultimately I think it's a really positive first step in making university education accessible to everybody,' Drake said.

He hoped the Government would introduce a universal student allowance that reflected the cost of rent, transport and food.

'When you're studying full time you need to be able to do so without having to work 20, 30 hours a week as well because otherwise you're not getting the most out of your education.'

In the United Kingdom, student maintenance loans - similar to living costs loans here - were scaled according to the cost of living.

People studying in London, who did not live with their parents, received up to £11,354 (NZ$21,881.20) per year and students studying elsewhere in the country received £8,700 ($NZ 16,766.47).

Currently, students aged 24 and under are only eligible if their parents earn under a certain amount.

Drake said the possibility of scaling the allowance based on where students lived should be discussed after a universal student allowance had been rolled out.

University of Auckland student Tessa Rooney-Broadbent said it was unfair that people who studied in the regions got the same amount of allowance money as students who lived in Auckland and Wellington due to living costs being much higher in the cities.

The 19-year-old qualifies for a $162 weekly student allowance and $60 accommodation supplement, which did not cover her rent, petrol and food costs.

She topped up her income by borrowing another $69 through Studylink's living costs loan scheme and working part time.

This meant she could actually enjoy her life 'instead of just surviving', she said.

'I have friends whose parents don't support them at all but because their parents earn too much they're not eligible for the student allowance so they have to take out big loans just to live. If I didn't have a motorbike licence or I had to live closer to the city I'd definitely be struggling a lot more than I am,' Rooney-Broadbent said.

The manager of one of AUT's south campus student hubs, William Keung said so far this year his team across the university's three campuses had been contacted about 400 times by students seeking financial assistance.

The hubs provided students experiencing hardship with petrol and food vouchers, AT Hop cards and childcare subsidies.

An AUT spokeswoman said although the university understood living in Auckland could be expensive for students, it would not be pushing for student allowances to be increased.

'Our focus has been on what we can do,' the spokeswoman said.

When asked whether he had considered increasing the student allowance for Aucklanders and Wellingtonians, Minister of Education Chris Hipkins said: 'The Government is committed to addressing cost of living pressures in cities'.

'We have heard the concerns of students and their families who have told us cost is a real barrier to taking on tertiary study and training.That's why we made the first year of study fees-free and increased student allowances and living costs loans by $50 a week in the first 100 days of being in Government,' Hipkins said.