Student leaders have condemned Budget announcements which they claim will put education and training out of reach of many New Zealanders - women being among the hardest hit.
New Zealand Union of Students' Associations co-president David Do said "thousands more" potential students had been shut out of tertiary education by yesterday's "enormously short-sighted" Budget.
Tertiary Education Minister Steven Joyce and Revenue Minister Peter Dunne say the changes to the student loan scheme are about "encouraging personal responsibility and getting better value for taxpayers".
The interest-free nature of the student loan scheme meant every dollar being lent out today was worth only about 55c, Mr Joyce said.
According to the Government's forecast, it will have lent about $1.58 billion in student loans during the 2010-11 financial year.
Caitlin Dunham, women's rights officer for the students' association, said students over the age of 55 were disproportionately female.
"These are the women who may not have had access to higher education when they left school, and now that they are older and have raised families, want to receive formal training to re-enter the workforce," Ms Dunham said.
Grey Power Otago president Jo Millar said the cutback on student loan allowances for the over-55s was "just appalling".
"People wanting to retrain and upgrade skills as they moved into a new phase of their working lives will be terribly disadvantaged," she said.
Otago Polytechnic Students Association president Michelle Fidow labelled the Government's changes to the student loan scheme an "outrageous discrimination".
Every New Zealand adult should be entitled to a student loan when they needed it, irrespective of their age, she said.
Student loan changes
Student loan borrowing for people aged over 55 restricted to tuition fees only.
Part-time, full-year students excluded from borrowing for course-related costs.
