I really do think that graduates with degrees in engineering, geology, medical, IT, should really look at Australia for employment. Especially those graduates from Ch-ch. A lot of the big mining companies are now willing to pay of the student loans, for those people with the right degrees. I met one young engineer graduate who got a good job in the mines, the company paid of his student loan, but he had to give that company 5 years, and that is with a $90,000 Salary with bonuses.

I can only speak for myself, I left NZ to have an OE experience, not to avoid paying off the student loan. Not everyone is earning a lot of money when they move overseas, I earnt £6800 one year only barely getting by, I am currently looking for a job. I have worked for two companies in the past 12 months who have not paid me, one for 3 months and I have had to leave another job because again when pay day came around I received nothing again. At the moment I am struggling to find the money to pay the rent next month so paying off the student loan (from my point of view) right now looks impossible. Bankruptcy does not sound like a terrible thing, more a relief. Penalty charges for people like me is not an incentive at all. It just makes the mountain of debt worst. Any amount I can afford to pay back would not cover the interest so it seems pointless. If you stopped the interest so that money I did pay actually meant the debt would be decreasing would help. I am not a bad person for not paying back my student loan, I am just broke.

Great idea! I have just finished paying off my student loan last year. I live and work in Australia now and hear stories of people who refuse to pay it back. They seem to think it is a right and not a privilege to have a student loan. I think the Government should do a lot more to enforce the repayment of student loans.

I am so glad that I raised this matter. We are now having a great "national conversation" about this. A lot of the concerns raised are answered on the FAQs of the "about" page of www.heke.ac.nz.

Basically, I see this as an opportunity to those overseas with outstanding loans to get a win-win. Pay off the loan, give yourselves the chance to come home one day (NZ may look pretty good by comparison in 10 years, and get to he a hero or heroine by helping your country. It's not often we get the chance to be celebrated and appreciated just for carrying out our obligations!

I do understand the "generation" issue. In my day only a few percent of the population went to university. It was funded by much higher marginal income tax, 66 cents in the dollar, and of course I paid that 66 cents in the dollar marginal rate for 15 years, on my return to NZ in 1974. Now the world seems to have moved to lower income tax and more user pays. Is that a good thing? I'm not sure. Of course the world was different when I went to university. We did have fees, the equivalent of about $2000 to $3000 per year in today's money, certainly lower than now, but we had to pay them. My parents had no secondary education and didn't really understand the idea of university. I never had a cent from them in financial support. I worked in the Imlay freezing works in Wanganui for 5 seasons, 5am to 8 pm each day, holidays included. I don't recall ever having even a few days off for summer for 5 years. I considered myself lucky to get such a job, and of course I was. This is not a "sob story", just my story. We have all had to work hard and pay in different ways. It was a different world then

Rick #111 The answer is obvious, graduates who work here contribute to our economy and that is worth recognising. The ones who take off, do not and deserve to pay the interest on their loan

I don't really see why overseas graduates should repay any more than those at home, to be honest.

They paid for their education (hence the loan) therefore they own it - NZ cannot claim some sort of rights over what they do with it and penalise those who choose to seek experience overseas. They have taxes and expenses to pay in their host country and use no services here whilst they are away.

We NEED overseas experience - we are a tin pot economy, a mouse in a world of elephants. If our graduates remain here we will become so parochial and inward looking that we will become more of a joke than we are already. Overseas experience helps us learn not to believe our own publicity. It also brings new ideas and ways of doing things.

If we had an economy the size of the USA and the breadth and diversity of experience available within it that they have, then I might see the point of this - but as it stands, we do not and I do not.

great post about <a href='http://www.school-loans-for-single-moms.org/’>school loans for single moms</a>.. these has helped alot of people so far!

given the fact we now live in a gloabl market place, why do we need to educate 'expensive' post industrial labour here in New Zealand at all? We can simply import it, or better still 'off-shore our operations?

Actually we could kill a few birds here with one big stone. Close the universities; the savings would pay to rebuild a dozen Christchurchs.

Sorry I am at work so no time to read all the comments. Renee Cox is incorrect there is currently a bonus for making voluntary repayments. Any voluntary re-payments over $500 earns you a bonus debt reduction of 10% of the amount you volluntarily repaid! I doubled my required payment to help out the NZ economy and my own pocket!

I sent face book messages to all my overseas friends to suggest that they also try and pay extra off their loans this year for Christchurch (I reckon the guy promoting it all found out about my campaign LOL).

The government (and the poeple) of NZ are going to need the extra cash this year!!

@ that guy #106

Most of the graduates (they're no longer students given they've got a degree and gone overseas) are paying back the minimum required by IRD on their loan each year. So by all accounts most of them are "manning up" to their obligation to repay their loans.

Do you honestly believe that these graduates should work in dead-end jobs before they go overseas? And do you have any conception of how long they'd have to do that before repaying their loans? It's bad enough that tertiary education is proportionately more expensive for them than previous generations, but then to lock them into staying in the country, where they'll get further and further behind those who they compete for jobs for isn't really encouraging anyone to go off and try and make something of themselves professionally.

Ultimately New Zealand as a whole would suffer far more from such a policy than what the current situation causes. You'd have no injection of fresh ideas from overseas, no ex-pats returning bringing skills and experience that just cannot be gained in New Zealand. We would become an insular little backwards country at the end of the world.