Spiralling debt. Photo: Mikhail Nilov.
I have read of a doctor being arrested at Wellington airport recently.
Apparently, his student loan arrears were over $150,000 and according to reports, the government wants the money back. Who would have thought ?.
Student loan arrears add up to over a billion dollars and some of the loans were huge.
Many of the people owing the money are overseas, and it sounds as though quite a few are not coming back.
Whether that’s because they owe so much money or their life overseas is so good wasn’t made clear in the news I heard. Maybe a bit of both.
Now I’ve never passed an exam in my life, so you could question my ability to know. I’ve borrowed a lot of money I thought I needed to, to advance from starting from nothing to where I am today.
I’d say borrowing was a necessary evil, not something I enjoyed, and it’s gone a long way toward making a couple of
Richard Steele
banks a lot of money. I was never that pleased about that either.
There was never a moment in all those years of working, when I ever thought, for even the briefest moment, that I didn’t have to pay the borrowing back.
Even worse than that, all through my life all manner of people have gone broke and have suffered the ignominious fate of being sold up, by whoever they owed the money to.
I’ve even sailed a little too close for comfort to the wind at times, and at those times I’ve sought advice then borrowed more or just worked harder to keep my head above water, so to speak.
So how can so many thousands of people, bright enough to go on to higher education, not realise the consequences of their youthful borrowings?
I know life’s tough at times. I well know that circumstances change through life sometimes, and not always in better ways. I’m also aware that pubs in some university cities sell more beer than any other places in the country.
I’m possibly a bit old fashioned here, but I’m not sure of how many students work in the generous time off study they have so that’s they can enjoy the social life they want, and the debt is not so big, when the degree has been achieved.
You would be surprised at how many students we employed to pick up hay who went on to become doctors .
In my role as an advocate with the rural support trust, I found the Inland Revenue Department to be most helpful when approached to assist a business in trouble.
And here’s another thought.
How about removing the qualification from the person whose arrears are so serious they may never be sorted. Just until the problem is worked out, to be sure.
Why do the people who borrow the money feel so entitled that they believe not paying the money back is ever going to be an option that they can get away with?
