Otago Polytechnic Students' Association 

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  

19/09/2008

Student Debt Cuts: What about everyone else?

OPSA believes National's policy to wipe a portion of some health professional graduates' student debt is good for those whom it will benefit -- but asks why these breaks are not also available to all hard working graduates.

"It's great for those graduates it will benefit, and for areas where health professionals will be attracted, but what about builders, mechanics and other skilled trades-people?  The country also desperately needs them, so why not give them student debt breaks as well?" said Ryan Ward, OPSA Co-president.

OPSA sees this policy as a partial admission on National's part that the student loan scheme is a failure.

"Students' associations warned National, when they set the student debt scheme up, that it would add to the country's brain drain," said Meegan Cloughley, OPSA Co-president.

OPSA believe the best way forward is to stop debt from accruing in the first place by paying all full-time students a basic living allowance similar to the unemployment benefit.

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