National’s Tertiary Policy

National has now released its teriary policy. The first part, also part of the tax policy, was to make interest on student loans tax deductible.

I like the fact that one can intelligently justify the policy in terms of treating getting a tertiary education along the same lines as borrowing to go into trade or business. The cost is relatively modest, but this is not a bad thing as if one makes student loans too attractive, you encourage students who don’t need them, to take them out. The total amount of long-term predicted student debt has skyrocketed under Labour because of this.

Labour has wasted billions of dollars, as seen by:

* Tertiary education expenditure has grown by almost $1 billion since 1999, but degree courses have grown by only 6% in six years, while community education courses have grown by 545% and certificate and diploma courses by 116%.

* Labour is spending $65 million on community education courses which have no assessment, no qualification, and no requirement for evidence that students are doing the courses.

* From 2000 to 2004 Labour spent at least $3.3 billion on sub-degree courses, of which only one third of students completed, so $2.2 billion was spent on unfinished courses.

In the full tertiary policy (not yet online), the key points are National will:

* Abolish Community Education courses run by tertiary institutions as informal courses with no assessment, no qualification and no teaching time are not tertiary education.

* Remove funding restrictions on trades and apprenticeship funding and encourage more trade training and apprenticeships by paying more for high-quality, high skills qualifications.

* Freeze government spending on student enrolment in sub-degree certificate and diploma courses

* Institutions who do not have adequate quality control systems or who have approved dubious courses will lose the ability to approve their own new courses.

* Pay institutions for students when there is evidence that students are genuinely engaged and learning, not just enrolled.

* Cut funding for any course where the drop-out rate exceeds 50% two years running.