1,000 signatures reached
To: Members of New Zealand Parliament
Make Tertiary Education Free and Accessible
.png)
It is time for a Debt Free Future. It is time to invest in our tauira and the future of Aotearoa New Zealand.
We are calling the elected representatives of Aotearoa New Zealand to aspire to work together to create a debt free future for all tertiary learners through the delivery of free and accessible tertiary education.
With the $16.3 billion of student debt ever-increasing, inequities with access to higher education deepening and the Peoples’ Inquiry into Student Wellbeing providing irrefutable evidence of student poverty and a cost-of-living crisis, it is clear the system is broken and needs to change.
WHAT ARE WE CALLING FOR?
We call for our representatives to act and invest in making a free education system from end to end.
We accept that sustainable change can be incremental, and therefore ask our representatives to immediately take the following steps towards a Debt Free Future:
👉 Re-implement the three-years fees-free policy and have it amended to be based on equivalent full-time study.
👉 Make Taught Postgraduate Degrees free.
👉 Increase the income repayment threshold.
👉 Implement the recommendations from the Peoples’ Inquiry into Student Wellbeing, particularly the provision of a Universal Education Income.
We are calling the elected representatives of Aotearoa New Zealand to aspire to work together to create a debt free future for all tertiary learners through the delivery of free and accessible tertiary education.
With the $16.3 billion of student debt ever-increasing, inequities with access to higher education deepening and the Peoples’ Inquiry into Student Wellbeing providing irrefutable evidence of student poverty and a cost-of-living crisis, it is clear the system is broken and needs to change.
WHAT ARE WE CALLING FOR?
We call for our representatives to act and invest in making a free education system from end to end.
We accept that sustainable change can be incremental, and therefore ask our representatives to immediately take the following steps towards a Debt Free Future:
👉 Re-implement the three-years fees-free policy and have it amended to be based on equivalent full-time study.
👉 Make Taught Postgraduate Degrees free.
👉 Increase the income repayment threshold.
👉 Implement the recommendations from the Peoples’ Inquiry into Student Wellbeing, particularly the provision of a Universal Education Income.
Why is this important?
WHY A DEBT FREE FUTURE?
Fulfilling these asks and a Debt Free Future is possible, in fact we’ve achieved it before – because education is a public good.
Our country has a rich history of free tertiary education, for 121 years, until it was taken away in 1990.
After lobbying from students and supporters across the motu, in 2017 we secured a promise of 3 years Fees Free from the Labour Party; but in 2020 the Government broke its promise to extend the policy and took this opportunity, this right, from learners.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
We have the power to bring free and accessible education back, and we need your support.
Sign and share this petition to be part of the movement fighting for a Debt Free Future.
This is about people, community and doing what’s right.
Fulfilling these asks and a Debt Free Future is possible, in fact we’ve achieved it before – because education is a public good.
Our country has a rich history of free tertiary education, for 121 years, until it was taken away in 1990.
After lobbying from students and supporters across the motu, in 2017 we secured a promise of 3 years Fees Free from the Labour Party; but in 2020 the Government broke its promise to extend the policy and took this opportunity, this right, from learners.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
We have the power to bring free and accessible education back, and we need your support.
Sign and share this petition to be part of the movement fighting for a Debt Free Future.
This is about people, community and doing what’s right.