{"id":18315,"date":"2026-08-25T05:55:54","date_gmt":"2026-08-24T17:55:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18315"},"modified":"2026-08-25T05:55:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-24T17:55:54","slug":"student-loan-borrower-number-climbs-along-with-amount-loaned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/?p=18315","title":{"rendered":"Student loan borrower number climbs along with amount loaned"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The number of people using the student loan scheme has jumped and so has the\u00a0amount they are borrowing<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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An Education Ministry report to Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds said 126,696 people borrowed from the loan scheme in the first three months of the year, 12 percent more than in the first quarter last year.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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In total they borrowed $1.145 billion, 19 percent or $184 million more than the same period in 2025.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The report said the number of students borrowing for fees increased 13 percent while the numbers borrowing for course-related cost and for living costs increased 11 and 10 percent respectively.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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However, the amounts they borrowed increased by even larger percentages.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The total borrowed for fees was up 20 percent or $162m over the same period last year, living costs borrowing jumped 19 percent, and borrowing for course-related costs by 11 percent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The report said trend for more borrowers began in 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“This increase in borrowers began during the April to June 2024 quarter and goes against a previous long-term rend of declining active borrower numbers,” the repot said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“The continued increase in borrower numbers is likely to have been strongly influenced by the performance of the economy, and subsequent slowing of the labour market. Generally we expect more people to choose to enter or remain in study when there are fewer employment options available to them.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The report said the number of\u00a0borrowers with overdue payments<\/a>\u00a0dropped four percent compared to the same time last year and most, 75 percent, were overseas-based borrowers (OBBs).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“As at March 31, the total overdue amount is $2.7b. Over 46 percent ($1.2b) of the total debt is penalties and interest, with $1.1b of those penalties owed by OBBs.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The report said 37,500<\/p>\n

RNZ<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The number of people using the student loan scheme has jumped and so has the\u00a0amount they are borrowing. An Education Ministry report to Tertiary Education Minister Penny Simmonds said 126,696 people borrowed from the loan scheme in the first three months of the year, 12 percent more than in the first quarter last year. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":18316,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18315"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18317,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18315\/revisions\/18317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}