Interest Free Student Loans from April 1

Teachers with student loans are celebrating the scrapping of interest on their loans which took effect on April 1.

'Scrapping interest on student loans is good for indebted teachers and good for the country as a whole,' says NZEI President Irene Cooper. 'It will enable far more new teachers to stay in New Zealand where their energy and enthusiasm will benefit children in schools and early childhood education centres throughout the country.'

NZEI ran a campaign led by its Young and New Members Network in 2005 for a fairer student loan system. More.

Teachers in Debt: A report card

In 2005, NZEI and NZUSA published a student debt survey and casebook about the impact of student debt on teachers. Download the casebook PDF here.

A new teacher with student loan debt

Frances Cudby is a second year teacher at Rotorua Primary School who has a student loan of more than $32,000

She's also a mother with four children. She worked as a teacher aide for four years then decided to qualify as a teacher. At the end of 2004 she finished three years of full time study and graduated with a Bachelors degree in Teaching and Learning.

She says scrapping interest on her loan saves her more than $40,000 and she will now pay her loan off in 13 years. If she'd had to continue paying interest it would have taken her almost 25 years to pay off the loan and she'd have ended up paying more than $72,000. That would have meant she would have been paying her loan until she reached retirement age.

Labour debt calculator

NZEI applauded Labour's commitment to wipe interest on student loans. You can check out how the legislation will affect your student loan debt on Labour's calculator.