However, Education Minister Chris Hipkins has defended the policy, introduced by the Labour Government in 2018, arguing the decile system should not be used to generalise about students’ financial situations.
Set to be replaced next year, the decile system assigns schools a number based from one to 10 — the lower the number, the more funding the school is deemed to need.
Figures obtained from the university under the Official Information Act show students in their first year at the university for whom data was available came from high schools with an average decile rating of 7.6 in 2022.
In 2018 the average rating was also 7.6, slightly higher than the 7.5 average in 2017 before the free fees policy came into force.
The policy aimed to expand participation in tertiary education and reduce student debt.
National Party tertiary education spokeswoman and Invercargill MP Penny Simmonds said she was not surprised by the figures.
The fees-free policy had failed to address equity issues and was an inefficient use of public money, she said.
"It hasn’t done any of the things that they claimed it would do in terms of making tertiary education more accessible."
She believed assistance should be "far more targeted" to addresses specific areas of concern.
Asked if the figures showed failure, Mr Hipkins said the Government was satisfied with the scheme.
Using decile ratings to generalise about economic circumstance was "misleading" because it did not reflect the situation of all pupils at a school.
"This is why we have changed it to a much more accurate equity index, which reflects actual need."
From January, the equity index will replace the decile system in determining how much government funding a school receives.
The decile system was based on disadvantage in pupils’ neighbourhoods and was only updated every five years.
However, the equity index system will include 37 socioeconomic factors, including personal factors such as parents’ benefit history, and will be updated every year.
The University of Otago was also just one of the institutions the fees-free policy was aimed at, Mr Hipkins said.
Reducing student debt levels was another key aim, and student loan borrowing reduced by $194.2 million from 2017 to 2018, largely because of the policy, he said.
Any decision on extending the scheme would depend on future budgets.
