At the age of 20, Huia Welton got married. But not to the person she loved.

At the age of 20, Huia Welton got married. Nothing too unusual in that, you might think. But there were a few things about this wedding that made it a little different. For a start, she hardly knew her groom.

"You could marry someone that you didn't even know but I couldn't marry someone that I loved."

It was 2000 and Huia was a second-year student at Massey University in Palmerston North. She was active in student politics and keen to have her say about the things that mattered to her. One of those things was student fees and parental means-testing on eligibility for student allowances. But a loophole that became a cause celebre and the focus of many student protests meant that if you got married, you got money.

Huia felt the best way to make her protest heard was by getting hitched in what were widely known as 'mock weddings' - but not to the person she loved. Because for her, there was a second injustice at play.

"I came out (as a lesbian) when I was 16. The issue of not being able to marry the person that I loved was a really big deal for me."

A little backstory; since the late 1980's, big changes had been taking place in tertiary education. Under the 1989 Education Act, the Labour Government introduced a standard tertiary fee of 10% of course costs (around $1200) and swapped out the old grants scheme for the flasher sounding student allowances. Allowances were a universal entitlement; if you studied fulltime at tertiary level, you qualified.

When National replaced Labour as the government in late 1990, funding for universities was reduced and the standard fee abolished. Universities were allowed to set their own fees and made up the funding shortfall by charging students more.

National's then education minister Dr Lockwood Smith also introduced means testing on allowances for students under 25. If your folks had a combined income of $27,872 or above, your allowance was progressively reduced. If they made more than $50,000, you got nothing.

If students didn't have enough work to live off, they could borrow their living costs through the 1992 Student Loan Scheme, which you could also use to pay your now increased university fees. At the time, these loans were interest bearing for all students

So if you were under 25, your parents made more than $50,000 per annum but couldn't afford to pay you an allowance, your only real option was to take out a loan.

Or get married.

"If you were deemed to be financially independent of your parents then you were entitled to an allowance" explains Huia.

"And one of the criteria (for independence) was that you were married."…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details