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Sir Paul Callaghan - Source: ONE News -
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Sir Paul Callaghan has made an appeal, via open letter, to the 85,000 Kiwis who live (and presumably work) abroad with unpaid student loans.
He suggested that if all those loans were paid off, $2 billion would be remitted back to the country, taking care of a sizeable amount - almost 30% - of the $7 billion repair bill for the Christchurch earthquake.
Sir Paul's overture was humble, polite, well-meaning, and worrying.
In the US at present, some fear 'Mission Creep' in Libya, or a situation whereby the perimeters of the NATO (but still US-led, practically) extend to become all-out war.
I'm concerned about 'Earthquake Creep', in which the hugeness of the reconstruction task unbalances the way New Zealanders debate or respond to important issues.
It is disproportionate to target New Zealand ex-students living overseas as those first in line to help pay for Christchurch's (and New Zealand's) misfortune.
Why them? As Sir Paul notes, 35,000 are behind in their repayments. If an ex-student stays in New Zealand, they don't have to pay interest, they do if they live overseas.
The problem with Sir Paul's proposal is that many of these ex-students feel the New Zealand education system screwed them.
I ran his idea past a Kiwi expat who was at university in New Zealand from 1994-99. Her response? "I'd like to smack him in the face..."
Then she corrected herself, "I mean, I'm not for people defaulting on loans."
My acquaintance is like that. Extremely level-headed. Her five year degree cost her $90,000, of which exactly half of that was interest. She has not forgotten that she was charged market rates of interest from the day she entered university.
That's no longer the case for people living in New Zealand but when she went through, the system targeted those who wanted an education as a source of revenue. "I had the bad luck to go through a broken system," she says.
She now works on Wall Street. She's paid her debt in full. Others who attended university at the same time as her may not be as fortunate in their jobs and may not have paid their loans back.
Having suffered under a policy that penalised ambition and self-advancement, they're now being demonised as somehow holding New Zealand to ransom.
I don't support loan defaulters.
I want Christchurch rebuilt as quickly and safely as possible. But you can't fix a broken city by leaning on people who were victims of a broken system.
That's Earthquake Creep.
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Post new commentExpatEngineer said on 2011-04-26 @ 02:17 NZDT: Report abusive post
Student loans for rent and food create two classes of graduate. When you graduate one can not afford quality of life or to compete in the job market for low pay with others who could live at home while studying/entering workforce or are eager to immigrate to NZ. New Zealand, take an Aussie lesson and give everyone a Fair Go. For the record my Post Graduate studies earned NZ $1M per annum in increased export product sales. Consider that debt paid.
ExpatEngineer said on 2011-04-26 @ 02:15 NZDT: Report abusive post
Student loans for rent and food create two classes of graduate. When you graduate one can not afford quality of life or to compete in the job market for low pay with others who could live at home while studying/entering workforce or are eager to immigrate to NZ. New Zealand, take an Aussie lesson and give everyone a Fair Go. For the record my Post Graduate studies earned NZ $1M per annum in increased export product sales. Consider that debt paid.
blaize said on 2011-04-17 @ 17:58 NZDT: Report abusive post
It's simple. NZ can not actually stop people leaving as it's against the Declaration of Human Rights...
Sullir said on 2011-04-17 @ 14:39 NZDT: Report abusive post
I am not sure it's even about the Christchurch Rebuild particularly - anyone who agrees to the loan conditions must repay the debt - living at home or overseas - no question about it guys, you took the money to get your education paid for to enable you to get better jobs and much more money - without the education and degrees you would not be even getting those salaries, so get real and get honest and pay up.
John Proffitt said on 2011-04-17 @ 11:47 NZDT: Report abusive post
The focus should be to identify all those oversea's students who were not citizens of New Zealand who secured the loans then took off as soon as they qualified.