Debt as the price of freedom? : Student experiences and understandings of the Student Loan Scheme

Abstract

Neoliberal reforms mark a distinctive shift in New Zealand politics from the mid-1980s. As part of this agenda, the tertiary education sector was transformed, marking a dramatic shift towards user pays and an emphasis on individual freedom and choice. Tertiary fees were introduced in 1990 and two years later the New Zealand Student Loan Scheme was established to help students pay for tertiary costs and to improve equity in tertiary education. Nineteen years after its inception and following many modifications, this thesis considers: ‘what are student experiences and understandings of the Student Loan Scheme?’ The scheme was based on three key neoliberal assumptions: (1) tertiary education is a private commodity rather than a public good; (2) self-interest drives individual choices in tertiary education, and the Student Loan Scheme facilitates such choices by allowing students to choose educational programmes without being constrained by their current financial circumstances; and (3) the Student Loan Scheme facilitates equality of opportunity by removing financial access barriers for students. This thesis explores whether these assumptions are reflected in or relevant to current students’ experiences and understandings of the Student Loan Scheme. Based on qualitative interviews with 12 participants from the University of Auckland’s Faculty of Arts, this thesis finds that students see tertiary education as both a private commodity and public good. Secondly, students are found to have multiple and complex self-interests in which they work, not all of which fit comfortably with the scheme’s overriding conception of self-interest in terms of long term financial gains. There is also little evidence to suggest that the Student Loan Scheme facilitates freedom of choice or equality of opportunity. Therefore, student experiences and understandings both reflect and challenge the three key neoliberal assumptions. It is argued that this is not surprising, given both the tensions and contradictions within the scheme and the rather dubious ground upon which some of the original assumptions were based. In this way, the Student Loan Scheme reflects neoliberalism’s broader tendencies to differ in theory and in practice, and to embody differing ideas that often sit in tension with each other.