Government policy may doom MIT

The Herald reports:

The Manukau Institute of Technology has warned that proposals to tighten post-study work visas for overseas students could threaten the institute’s financial viability.

Chief executive Gus Gilmore has told the Government that the proposed changes would halve the institute’s fulltime-equivalent foreign students from 1000 to 500, cost 64 tutoring jobs and slash its revenue by $10 million a year, or 10 per cent of its $103m total revenue.

The Government says it wants to make the polytech sector more financially viable, yet its own policies may doom some of them.

The backlash from the polytechnic sector appears to have surprised the Government, as Labour’s 2017 election policy said its proposed crackdown on student work rights would only affect “low-level courses at private training establishments”.

“We do not expect them to adversely impact universities, polytechnics or schools,” the policy said.

Surely not. Labour getting the impact of its policies wrong. What a surprise.