…Helen Clark’s orthodontist…

Now I believe in tooth fairies.

anyway.

Mate, when my wife had her wisdom teeth done it was at Helen Clark’s orthodontist. I ran into her and her security detail just as they were leaving the building. That was four or five years ago. I’m still scarred

Are you impaired in some way? Did anybody mention National? Did anybody mention $50? You’re limiting your options by looking at the world through a Labour Good, National Bad filter. There is a plethora of options available. Do you think a student would welcome an additional $400 a month? Of course they would.

But it is still missing the fucking point and quibbling over a minor aspect whilst ignoring the elephant in parliament.

There is no reason for the country as a whole to subsidise the sub-standard education system the Labour party has foisted on this country.

People who wish to have a tertiary education are more than welcome to pay for it. If they cannot afford to do so they are more than welcome to save for a few years. Or, if they believe there is a commercial reason for their degree, to borrow the funding necessary to do so. After all, if they need the degree to get a job then surely the additional money they earn will pay their way. Or they can study part-time. There are so many damn options.

In the same way people who wish to fund education are welcome to do so. Case in point RRM. He is interested in funding the the things that add to the quality of being alive. What is preventing him from doing so? Nothing. Except perhaps the inherent belief that it is somehow the government’s responsibility rather than that of the individual. Do you think RRM donates to a university? Or sponsors some students’ books for his/her studies? I doubt it. His comments strike me as the type of person who expects everybody else to pay for it through tax, rather than somebody who would be willing to pay for it out of his own pocket because he believes in it.

Pascal, which students have you been talking to in person to get your impression that they feel like they are owed everything and do not expect or desire to earn anything?

http://union.org.nz/about/student-fees-protest
http://www.salient.org.nz/news/students-protest-for-money-told-get-real
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0804/S00147.htm

Students protest about fee increases, yes. I still do not see an attitude of believing they’re owed, rather than expecting to earn.

And so on and so forth. This includes everyone who will (rightly) vote for yet another bribe from the Labour Party to reduce student loans, fees, accomodation supplements or whatever they will use as their electoral lolly scramble this year to get the student vote.

If you actually open your eyes and see what is happening out there it would have been obvious.

Pascal, rather than repeat exactly what you said to inspire my question, how about you answer it?

That question again: which students have you been talking to?

2. I think every student an allowance of $100 + a potential loan of $150-200 a week. You want an education — you can pay for it with a loan! Either that or let every student get a loan of up to $300 — with no allowance.

You could afford to shell out $50,000 to permanently endow an undergraduate scholarship if you got another $50 a week from National’s tax cuts?

Fantastic. I have to agree with you, those are noble ideals to strive for. Now why don’t you open your chequebook and write a donation to the University? Or pick a student and subsidise their education through a sponsorship. Then you can fund things that do everything you want it to do.

If I had the money I’d certainly look at doing that. Unfortunately, I don’t have that much disposable income because the Labour government takes it all off me to fund Hip-Hop courses, Twilight Golf and so forth as they focus on “bums on seats” education.

In any case, I think this would be a rather outrageous bribe which as Redbaiter points out appeals to one’s baser instincts for taking whatever we can get, regardless of the cost to others (but it get’s Labour some votes – wahay!). Means testing would certainly be a massive improvement on what we currently have (and Key’s 10% off idea would certainly lower the debt the country is incurring as a result of the no-interest policy), or at least lowering the age it is assumed that we are no longer reliant on parents by about, oh, 5-7years (I think it’s about 25 now). Or possibly some sort of combination of both.

You miss the salient point. Which, honestly, I’m not surprised at. You show all the hallmarks of a socialist and it’s becoming increasingly obvious that anybody who subscribes to that political ideology is thick as mud.

So. Not all foreign students are here because of wealthy parents. From my perspective and within the demographic that I know personally the opposite is true. They are self-made people who wanted to educate themselves further and worked on their own to achieve this goal. Others have cobbled together their student fees from their extended families. Others worked and saved for a few years to have enough money to come study here.

And as you rightly pointed out, they pay a LOT more than your average Kiwi. And yet your average Kiwi is still bitching about high fees, how unfair it is to them to have to pay for their accomodation and so forth. Cry me a river, would you?

If somebody from a poor country without wealthy parents can travel overseas to educate themselves because they are determined to do so, whilst paying their own way for both accomodation and a 3 times higher cost of studying then what the hell is wrong with you living in a comfortable, first world democracy?

Attitude. That is the difference. Gimmegimmegimme versus I can and I will.

You’ve not been in New Zealand for very long, have you?

http://union.org.nz/about/student-fees-protest
http://www.salient.org.nz/news/students-protest-for-money-told-get-real
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0804/S00147.htm

And so on and so forth. This includes everyone who will (rightly) vote for yet another bribe from the Labour Party to reduce student loans, fees, accomodation supplements or whatever they will use as their electoral lolly scramble this year to get the student vote.

New Zealand students live off a sense of entitlement for fees, accomodation and so forth. They see a tertiary education as a right and a requirement, rather than a priviledge. But that is what happens when a culture turns a university into the means to earn a degree for a job, rather than a means to educate yourself and to learn.

If you actually open your eyes and see what is happening out there it would have been obvious.