AUSSIE Students & student loans (or lack thereof)

As much as we go on about student loans and allowances, many of you will be shocked that in Aussie these rarely exist. There is no student loan system to borrow your 150 a week, and only those whose parental income is under some bloody low figure (like 30,000) can apply for a hardship allowance.

Students are forced to work (quite a lot) to get by or scrimp from their parents. Accordingly many students opt for part time study so they can balance work and study.

Rudd is considering bringing in a student loan scheme - but they NUS (national union of students) is not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing. On one hand they can see them facing 10Billion of student debt like we currently have. On the other hand they can see students better supported to live whilst they study. Interesting..

There is a scheme called HECS which pays your student fees - so in this regard they have a similar system to us. You have to pay back your HECS once you start earning around 35k or more a year...... Interestingly their HECS is bloody expensive compared to ours as well - around 8k a year for a law student.

Yet in all this - the Times Higher Education Supplement - or THES - which ranks universities worldwide - ranks the Aussie universities pretty highly compared with ours... ANU is around 16 in the world - and Melbourne Uni, Sydney Uni, University of Queensland, NSW University and Monash are all inside the top 50 in the world. NZ boasts Auckland at number 50, Otago at 117 and Canterbury at 188 (the number 12 University in Australasia).

Bus Discounts...

Students across the world get concession rates on public transport. This is normally around 50% off.... In CHCH there is no discount on the busses - and the fares are currently increasing almost as quickly as petrol costs!!

We need to get sustainable and embrace the public transport in CHCH. Metrobus service also need to recognise this and follow the lead of almost every other city in the world and offer discounted fares for students.

We have started a petition to get some student concession rates in CHCH, check it out at http://www.petitiononline.com/michamad/petition.html. We have had a chat with ECan and have got the ball rolling with some help from the crew who got this off the ground in Auckland. Will keep you posted on this - but feedback is always welcome

Chur,
Goldy

MMP - a genY party??

One politician continually in the news, for better or for worse is Winston Peters. Mr Peters has used his charismatic style of politics to particularly win over one section of NZ - the old people. His constant speeches to greypower, and often single minded policy focus has won him enough of the vote to keep NZ First in government for many years.

NZ first are not shy in rolling out policies that are for the benefit of old people. Their confidence and supply agreement with Labour begins with their agreement on policies that are for the benefit of senior citizens. They have developed a supergold card which gets massive benefits to old people across NZ and they have made constant gains on the level of superannuation available.

Why then has a party not started to focus and benefit on young people - the generation Y of NZ? There are some 500,000 students across NZ and if they all block voted for a genY party then either govt would need the support of young people to govern parliament. Such a party could focus on student issues, or issues that will stop the hoards of young people leaving our shores.
A genY party would keep parliament honest and embrace the benefits of the MMP system. Labour said they would have 50% of students entitled to the student allowance - it has not happened. National talk endlessly about ambition - what does that mean for genY'ers??

A genY party could produce results for young people to make life easier, like Winston has done for greypower.

Don't Hit Girls

If you cripple/hit girls.....you get into shit.

And we are running self defense classes this term as well, so keep an eye out for it.

When Canterbury goes to Auckland..

Well, it is now the first day of the second semester and well and truly time to get cracking on this blog.

I trust everybody made good use of their holidays.. I personally had a nice little getaway in Wanaka before heading up to Auckland for five days, to represent the UCSA at the NZUSA July conference.

This was an interesting trip. Over the course of the conference, we attended a number of workshops on issues relating to students and tertiary education. However, the highlight for me (aside from the BYO Thai restaurant :p) was a mini-debate I guess you could call it, with a speaker from each of the major political parties in the upcoming election. This was a real eye-opener for me. I'm quite politically minded but even I find myself tuning out when the news begins to broadcast what appears to be the same old arguments day in and day out. Having the opportunity to listen to these guys speak firsthand and ask them questions gave me a much better indication of how politicians and political parties are thinking, particularly about the kinds of issues that are affecting me personally - student loans, student allowances, course fees etc. I think we are all pretty unhappy with the current state of things - but its one thing to talk about it, quite another to actually do something. I know we all think that we are powerless to change anything, but when you have 16,000 students at Canterbury alone (I could google the nationwide figures but I'm running late for KO), there is certainly some strength in numbers!

I guess what I'm saying is - its election year. If there was ever a time to stop talking and start doing, this would be it. So pick up a paper, turn on the news from time to time and make the effort so you can make an educated choice on election day. Which leads me to another point, make sure you are enrolled to vote. If you're flatting, make sure you have changed your address. In saying that.. I haven't.. I'll do it tomorrow :D

Peace out

Hayley

Welcome to Semester 2 Kiddys!

Hello pals and chums,

Welcome back to semester 2, its time to jiggy, and get warm. Re-orientation has a few gems this year, Shihad this Friday, State of Mind + Tiki Tane this Saturday for all you D&B cats out there. Both gigs are in town, and limited student tickets are available from Unimart.

Don't forget that this Wednesday there's a quiz at Bentley's Wing upstairs from The Foundry, and CUBA is Jib'in it up this Thursday.

Tomorrow (Tues), theres Clubs Day from 10am, so make sure you bring some cash and join in the action, rumour has it CurrySoc is back in action.

So lots to do, get into it before the assesments and tests kick in this term, boo yah, peace out.

$10 Billion Dollar Debt Day - TV Coverage