Well, Winston let the cat out of the bag on Friday afternoon with Heather du Plessis Allan. Oh, we're scrapping fees free in the third year, he said, you'll find that in the budget.

And Finance Minister Nicola Willis has confirmed that yes indeed, the scheme will be ditched in the upcoming budget. 

Those students completing their tertiary studies this year in their final year will remain eligible for fees free.

So, all well and good.

It was a dog of a scheme, it was an absolute bribe, we all knew that. It was one of those nice policies that Labour brought in and ultimately, yet again, it didn't work. On paper it looked as though it might, but it didn't.

It's a nice to have and right now we are a country that cannot afford nice things. Had it been doing what it was intended to do, what on paper it looked like it might do, then the coalition government might have found the money to continue the scheme.

However, it never did, never achieved the goal of increasing the number of students participating in tertiary education.

It was also really bad at getting people who were disadvantaged to take up the scheme and that was the intention behind it when Jacinda Ardern announced the policy at a decile 5 school all those years ago.

Didn't work when it was first year fees free. It was a flagship policy from Labour to pay for the first year of tertiary education and then as the numbers swelled and children from decile 1 schools trooped off to university and raised themselves to the excellence they needed to find within themselves and just be fabulous, it was going to be free for anybody to go to university.

Didn't work.

The original intentions were to help people overcome economic barriers to higher education while also growing the numbers of those enrolled. In fact, the disparity between university entrance from low decile schools and higher decile schools got worse.

The Herald applied under the Official Information Act and it showed that in 2017 the year prior to the scheme being introduced, 38% of first year students at uni came from school deciles 1 to 5, the remaining 62% from deciles 6 to 10.

In 2021 that gap had widened, there were just 28% taking up the fees free policy coming from deciles 1 to 5, 72% from deciles 6 to 10.

So, you know, there's any number of reasons for that. It was a period of high unemployment in 2021 because we hadn't been opening the borders to workers so you might go straight into work rather than uni.

There's a number of reasons for that, but ultimately the reason for the scheme being introduced was to have a greater representation of young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Didn't work.

And it also doesn't work having the final year fees free in terms of encouraging people to complete their degrees because we've still got about a third of bachelor's degree level students not completing their qualifications even if they take six years to do it.

So that's not working.

I thought the final year fees free might encourage people to to stay on. No, data shows it hasn't.

So let's be done with it. Absolutely let's be done with it.

Put the money where it can better support the education and vocational needs of young people maybe. I mean university just does not have the cachet it once had and that's because it's a bums on seats model.

It used to be that universities were centres for higher academic learning. And they're not now.

It used to be that only a few people went to university and the taxpayer paid for them, all of their fees. Now hundreds of thousands of people go to university with a third of them never even completing their degree while the taxpayer picks up the tab for 80% of the course costs.

Are we getting value for money? I don't think we are.
 
As a model, and because the world is moving so fast, a lot of what young people are learning is out of date by the time they sit down and open their textbooks.

It's not for everyone, so put that money, a lot of that money into where it can most be used by young people.

I think, you know, universities still have a place, absolutely, but changing the focus away from higher academic learning to, 'hey anyone can have a go', I don't think is serving the young people, I don't think it's serving the universities and I don't think it's serving the taxpayer.

The Greens have called the decision outrageous. Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick says the Greens will fight to reinstate fees free support.

They say it's a fantastic, wise and smart investment to invest in tertiary education for students and communities. Is it?

The way it is right now, I don't I'm not entirely sure it is. I mean even 25-30 years ago I remember the the guy from Spark saying they don't take people from university in their technology and innovation and, I mean I'm sure they take some from other other areas, but if you're looking at the tech side of things they don't take them from university.

They'd far rather have bright young things go from school into their departments, having new ideas, new innovations. And that was 25 years ago.

So it's a nice to have the fees free tertiary education. If it was delivering, you might think about finding the money.

It's not, not on any metric, not on any level. And if the Greens think it's a smart investment, you'd have to worry about their financial nous, wouldn't you?

LISTEN ABOVE