When 39-year-old student Amy Marino (Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Te Arawa, Ngāti Manuhiri, Ngāi Tūhoe) enrolled for her last year of study in 2021, she was shocked to be told she wouldn’t be eligible for a student allowance.
By Bronson Perich
According to the Student Allowances Regulations 1998, eligible students 39 years and younger are entitled to the student allowance for up to 200 weeks. Eligible students over 40 get the same allowance for 120 weeks.
That means students under 40 can study for up to five years with the allowance. Students 40 and over can study for up to three years with their allotment.
Marino started her four-year degree in 2018. Since then she’s received the allowance for 40 weeks a year. So she’ll start 2021 with 120 weeks’ worth of allowance already paid out in previous years.
A policy dictated by law
Andy Jackson, Tumuaki Tuarua of Te Ara Kaimanawa, says the policy was enacted in 2014.
“This was done on the basis that younger learners are more likely to stay longer in the workforce than other age groups and contribute more economically,” Jackson says.
Jackson adds that older students would have had more time to gain qualifications and Parliament would need to change the law before they could change the policy.
But Marino says the policy discriminates against older students.
“I want this requirement to be rebuked, where all 40-plus-year-olds are given the financial opportunity to continue [to] study,” she says.
Declined an exemption
She informed TVNZ1's Te Karere that she wants to pursue a degree in social work so she can help her iwi and her own whānau. She applied for an extension of her entitlement, but the current legislation meant she was declined.
George van Ooyen, group GM client service support for MSD, explained the special circumstances that would make a student eligible for an exemption.
"When considering special circumstances these are limited in scope and normally only apply to situations not anticipated by the student and generally beyond the student’s control,” van Ooyen says.
Things like illness, accident, bereavement and personal difficulties would be considered. But changes to student allowance regulations are not considered special circumstances.
Marino says she has since lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.
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