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Is Tertiary Education a Right or a Privilege?
I’m going to run the risk of getting another lecturer about become Right Wing in my old age.
The Government is talking about a couple of things with Tertiary education: one is cutting interest free loans for people to retake a failed course (the details are hazy), and the other is to free up more slots for foreign students (thereby meaning less for locals).
People are leaping onto their high horses faster than you could shout ‘giddyup!’
I don’t know about other people, but in My Day, the university halls were full of youngsters running around feeling superior to the rest of the country because they were INTELLECTUAL. It drove me insane at the time because the fact of the matter is that in New Zealand, for vast amounts of us, it’s not THAT HARD to get into University.
Now, I believe those same people are wingeing because people want to make it HARDER. And by harder, they mean you have to actually be able to pass your course for the Government to further subsidise your studies with interest free loans and by no longer ensuring your place is available ahead of someone from overseas who would be paying the full fees – I think that most students don’t realise that a huge portion of their fees are covered by the Government before they even look at getting loans for the remainder.
Wasnt Tertiary Education invented so that the academically elite could be taken from a generic schooling system and really push themselves to greatness? Not that the masses could get a dumbed down degree in our desperate hope that no one feels like they missed out.
And the funny thing is no one is even demanding we go back to the initial purpose, they’re just saying that, like a lot of things I think New Zealanders have come to assume as their birthright as a citizen of New zealand, Tertiary Education is actually something that you should have to work for.
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June 2nd, 2010 at 7:19 pm
absolutely agree with you.
June 3rd, 2010 at 12:26 pm
I absolutely don’t agree with you :) But you’ve heard my rant before. I think university has so many positive spill over effects for people who want to go, and the country in general, that may not get quantified or have anything to do with ‘getting smarter.’
When you start turning people away that want to be there, its the first step in a direction you don’t want to go.
I also think that these first little baby steps, that seem so innocuous have the purpose of dulling it all down so that incremental changes can be made while we’re sitting complacently by. Before you know we’re thinking ‘how did we get here.’ If you acknowledge the importance of tertiary education and can see examples in the world demonstrating its good for a country to offer it openly and cheaply, why would you start straying from that fundamental point?
June 3rd, 2010 at 2:05 pm
ONE
It would be interesting to do a cost/benefit analysis on how much return on investment (both economic and happiness/fulfillment) university provides. I get that there are benefits, but I think maybe they could be got through other measures equally as well if not better.
It’s hard to make generic assumptions from our own experiences, but I recall far more students intent on drinking away their university days/sleeping in class/putting in minimal effort than making their time there the experience that you think it is. If the taxpayer is investing tens of thousands of dollars in each student to get a degree, could that money be better spent on other ways to receive positive additions to a person’s life? It’s a LOT of money and it’s real money that does need to be used in the best way possible.
TWO
As with our conversation about no sick leave for the first year of employment, these things occur as a result of ABUSE of a system. Systems constantly need to be tweaked and improved to see if we can move closer to the unreachable perfect goal. I think that we need to stop confusing tweaks with a downward spiral into right wing extremism.
I would jump to your side in a second if the Government started to talk about cutting the base funding they give. This is the funding that ensures pretty much all people in NZ can get an education if they want one.
But when it’s something like cutting free interest on loans for courses that a person fails more than once, I think that’s an exercise in feeing up money that is currently often falling easily into the hands of people who don’t appreciate it and don’t feel like they need to do anything to justify getting it. If you fail a course twice, once again, you are NOT getting the benefits of University you described. Maybe it’s time to try something new? That money can now be spent maybe on scholarships for those who desperately WANT to be educated but cannot even start to afford the living costs and course fees required.
I’m not arguing that we should pay less tax and cut things, I’m just saying it’s actually a wise move to constantly reassess how we spend that money and to ensure that those who are willing to take advantage of systems so that other, more deserving people miss out. I believe in New Zealand we have plenty of more deserving causes than allowing a kid to continually repeat courses on our dollar (i.e adding more hospital beds, funding Plunket properly to help first time mothers etc etc etc etc)
Actually, I’m not convinced I’m right wing at all, I think Im arguing simply for moving money to different, traditionally left wing areas :)
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Don’t know why I came back to this post today… but I’ll bite too Clare re :-When you start turning people away that want to be there, its the first step in a direction you don’t want to go.-
Loads of people want to be there [uni], but not many of them would be willing to spend $20000 per year to be doing it. Most students I know want an experience of growing up around peers, having a good time, getting a better job down the line. For too many, it’s a means of innoculating yourself from the real world of figuring out what you want to do, what you value, and depressingly how you are going to make a crust. And then you come out with an overhanging student loan, perhaps because you don’t understand the value of that debt.
But my real feeling about university is that generally the course material isn’t demanding enough. I went for an education and felt like I was being taught how to write essays, not critically think about the world, debate assumptions, explore beliefs. My fault for studying commerce perhaps.
Anyway, that’s my rant over. I consider myself politically ‘free market’ but not rabidly so. I accept students should be helped in learning but I am a little disappointed uni wasn’t the challenge I had hoped for. Many of the students there perhaps should be spending some time in work while they figure out what they do want.
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Ironically, the Interest Free Student Loans bribe of a few years ago opened up an economic black hole which leads to capping student number.
Not only that, if you get to 20 you can just go to university without requiring the normal entrance qualifications.
Interesting case study in unintended consequences.
Rod
June 3rd, 2010 at 4:27 pm
I am wondering if our opinions are hugely impacted by what we studied. I was a victim of commerce too and came out equally disappointed.
Claire did an awesome degree that DID challenger her.
I think all courses should be like the ones Claire took, but they aren’t, and some are pretty pathetic (i.e rehashing what I learned at school).
Maybe this is why Claire you believe there are all these extra benefits and I struggle to see them being THAT valuable?