Some tertiary students have found a way of cheating the loan system to get allowances of up to $300 a week, even if they are already getting big handouts from their parents, their peers say.<\/p>\n
Some parents are reportedly in on it – funnelling money into businesses and trust funds so it appears that their household income is below the eligibility threshold.<\/p>\n
Unlike the student loan living costs payment, the allowance does not need to be paid back, and ineligible students who are being saddled with huge student loan debts say it is just not fair.<\/p>\n
A student at the University of Canterbury says both her flatmates get the student allowance, despite their parents being very wealthy.<\/p>\n
“It’s a bit frustrating, just because I feel like they really don’t need the help and they’re the ones getting it. I’ve been kind of struggling for quite a while, but never really get anything.”<\/p>\n
The student said her flatmates’ parents were not working full-time, so did currently earn less than the eligibility threshold, but they were rich in cash and assets.<\/p>\n
They paid for the flatmates’ cars, medical costs, flights and other expenses, while she had taken on extra work to fund her studies.<\/p>\n
“Now I’m working 37 \u00bd hours, I’m taking one course so that I can stay afloat and have enough money.”<\/p>\n
To be eligible for the allowance, a student’s parents must earn less than $118,000 if they’re living away from home, or $128,000 if they’re living at home.<\/p>\n
The student said the system needed to change.<\/p>\n
“It would be nice if there was things in place to register how much debt your parents have, so that people who kind of need it can actually get it.”<\/p>\n
rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some tertiary students have found a way of cheating the loan system to get allowances of up to $300 a week, even if they are already getting big handouts from their parents, their peers say. Some parents are reportedly in on it – funnelling money into businesses and trust funds so it appears that their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":9461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9460","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\/9460","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=9460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9462,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9460\/revisions\/9462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}