A rent strike at Auckland University is over, but for students struggling financially, things are set to get worse.
Minister for Tertiary Education, Penny Simmonds proposed significantly increasing the maximum rate a university can increase fees by annually. Photo: RNZ / Angus Dreaver
Striking Auckland University students called off their protest against high rent costs last week, but if a proposal from Budget 2024 goes ahead, the cost of education in New Zealand will only get worse.
In a press release titled "Rewarding hard work in tertiary education and training," Minister for Tertiary Education Penny Simmonds proposed increasing the maximum rate a university can increase fees by annually to more than double what it is now.
While it's standard for the Annual Maximum Fee Movement rate to increase every year, Newsroom's Fox Meyer tells The Detail that a rise from the current 2.85 percent to the suggested six percent will be seen as a slap in the face.
"Nobody wants to be paying for [university], but as long as we are paying for it I think people would like it to feel like a fair deal, and I don't think it feels like a fair deal at the moment, I think students feel like they're getting fleeced," he says.
The minister's argument for raising the increase rate for tuition fees is to bring them in line with inflation, but Meyer says the subsidy the government is chipping in - $136 million in additional funding over four years - doesn't hit anywhere near that mark.
"So on one hand you have an argument that university funding should match inflation, but only when the students are paying it, and when the government's paying it, we don't have to use that same metric," he says.
Each university is funded partially by the government, after the fourth Labour government introduced The Education Act in 1989.
This was the result of an increased demand for this level of education, which brought increased costs to the sector, coupled with pressure to reduce government spending.
The argument was that because it's the student who receives the benefits of higher education - both in terms of greater lifetime earnings and personal development - they should pay for those benefits.
But Meyer says it has resulted in universities being run like a business and as a consequence are out of reach for some people.
"It's the difference between the right to something and the ability to exercise that right. We might have the right to go to university and get an education, but I might not be able to afford it, so what good is that right at the end of the day?"
In this podcast, The Detail speaks with the leader of the Students for Fair Rent campaign, Matthew Lee. He discusses the latest student strike action, where 16 University of Auckland students refused to pay rent all of last month in a dispute with the university over the affordability of student accommodation.
"We are telling the university that students are literally struggling to live," Lee says.
"Looking at the cost of rent at student accommodation, it is significantly higher than the average rent in Auckland central.
"Students are full time students, we should be studying full time, and education... is a right, it should not be a privilege. Rent should never be the barrier to that right."
But Campus Life director Brendan Mosely says the universities don't make a profit, and have been losing money on halls - though that looks set to change this year.
"This year we should be in the black for the first time since 2019," he says.
"If we make a small surplus, and I think we were budgeted to make a couple of hundred thousand this year, that goes into building projects and new developments."
Meyer says the way universities are forced to operate isn't easy and requires them to find income sources to cover funding shortfalls, which often results in increasing student fees. But regardless, he thinks students want to see their universities going to bat for them and demanding better funding from the government.
"What I would like to see and maybe they would like to see as well is, okay well if the universities are in this situation, at least don't be happy about it. If you're going to be increasing these fees on us, we better see you pushing as hard as you possibly can towards the government for a way to alleviate that funding shortfall."
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