Student loans scheme

Press, 11 July 1989, Page 20

Student loans scheme

Sir, —What has become of the Government’s oh-so-tough “the loans scheme will go ahead regardless” and, “if the banks won’t administer it, we’ll do it ourselves” stance? It seems that the Government has only just realised how unworkable the student loans scheme is and is now looking for a scapegoat. It has decided to lay this blame with the Students’ Association, claiming that it has done its members a “grave disservice” by pushing for the loans scheme to be abandoned. Students’ associations nationwide have been advocating dropping the loans scheme, but we certainly did not request an astronomical up-front tuition fee. I feel that perhaps the Government’s energies would be better employed solving some of this country’s problems rather than defaming the students’ association. —Yours, etc., • KIRSTEN FORRESTER, Education Officer,

University of Canterbury Students’ Association. July 6, 1989.

Sir, —Just when we thought that we had heard it all from politicians, and this Government in particular, we have Phil Goff asking the public to actually believe that students somehow forced the bankers’ hand over the student loans scheme. If students protested to bankers about general policy matters decided in the boardrooms those protests would receive verbally what the students in Tiananmen Square received physically — only that was dished out by the Government. —Yours, etc.,

G. VINCE MacDONALD July 6, 1989.