If Labour’s $2 billion fees-free scheme didn’t lead to an increase in student numbers but did reduce student debt, was it still worth it?

The coalition government doesn’t think so and is scrapping the scheme, saying it’s better to invest in things like trades training.

But I think the risk is we look at this $2 billion, which has come to light today through information provided to Newstalk ZB under the Official Information Act, and assume straight away that it was one big waste of money.

When it started, it was the first year of fees that were free. Then it changed to the final year of study. Most of the money went to university students, with the rest going to people signing up to study at polytechnics, private training establishments, industry training organisations and wānanga.

As far as Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds is concerned, it was a huge waste of money.

But, as someone who got in touch with me about it said: if you sit at home and do nothing, you get the dole. But if you get off your butt and go and study, you get nothing but a big loan to pay off.

They said the fees-free scheme might not have been the best way to go about it. But there is an inequity between people who don’t want to do anything and who get support from taxpayers, and others who try to make something of themselves and don’t.

And that’s where I’m at too. Yes, $2 billion is a truckload of taxpayer money. Yes, as we’re finding out today, it was $2 billion that didn’t actually achieve what it was supposed to achieve, which was getting more people into tertiary education.

But the other side of it is that the 300,000 students who took advantage of the scheme did come out of their studies with less debt than they otherwise might have. And what’s wrong with that?

Penny Simmonds says students will still be supported through the student loan scheme.

But don’t they deserve more than the government telling them to borrow more?

The Green Party is upset. It says the scheme increased Māori participation in tertiary education by about 20 percent.

But, more to the point, it doesn’t think it’s acceptable for the government to say it’s supporting students by piling more debt on them. And I agree.

Yes, some students can access the student allowance. But the bar for that is so high that most end up not qualifying for it.

So they put everything on the student loan and walk out the door with a whole lot of debt.

The fees-free scheme was far from perfect. But surely our tertiary students deserve better than just being told to go and borrow more money.

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