Budget 2024 will bump funding for universities, but students will likely be the ones footing the bill

A rent strike at Auckland University is over, but for students struggling financially, things are set to get worse.

Striking Auckland University students called off their protest against high rent costs last week, but if a proposal from Budget 2024 goes ahead, the cost of education in New Zealand will only get worse.

In a press release titled "Rewarding hard work in tertiary education and training," Minister for Tertiary Education Penny Simmonds proposed increasing the maximum rate a university can increase fees by annually to more than double what it is now.

While it's standard for the Annual Maximum Fee Movement rate to increase every year, Newsroom's Fox Meyer tells The Detail that a rise from the current 2.85 percent to the suggested six percent will be seen as a slap in the face.

"Nobody wants to be paying for , but as long as we are paying for it I think people would like it to feel like a fair deal, and I don't think it feels like a fair deal at the moment, I think students feel like they're getting fleeced," he says.

The minister's argument for raising the increase rate for tuition fees is to bring them in line with inflation, but Meyer says the subsidy the government is chipping in - $136 million in additional funding over four years - doesn't hit anywhere near that mark.

"So on one hand you have an argument that university funding should match inflation, but only when the students are paying it, and when the government's paying it, we don't have to use that same metric," he says.

Each university is funded partially by the government, after the fourth Labour government introduced The Education Act in 1989.

This was the result of an increased demand for this level of education, which brought increased costs to the sector, coupled with pressure to reduce government spending.

The argument was that because it's the student who receives the benefits of higher education - both in terms of greater lifetime earnings and personal development - they should pay for those benefits.

But Meyer says it has resulted in universities being run like a business and as a consequence are out of reach for some people.

"It's the difference between the right to something and the ability to exercise that right. We might have the right to go to university and get an education, but I might not be able to afford it, so what good is that right at the end of the day?" …

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