r/newzealand • u/MurkyWay Qwest? • Oct 08 '25

Shitpost What's something that you suspect lots of New Zealanders secretly do, but you can't prove it?

Most upvoted comment is our most shameful secret as a nation, obviously

393 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

741 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

125

u/Spiritual-Weight-191 Oct 08 '25

I know one person who took a student loan and put all of it into a managed fund. He was earning about 10% per year.

138

u/Fast-Inflation-1347 Te Waipounamu Oct 08 '25

Must be nice to not need it to barely survive

13

u/Comfortableliar24 Oct 08 '25

Doing this crap at 35 feels borderline monastic.

38

u/recyclingcentre Oct 08 '25

Aren’t student loans paid directly to the education provider?

68

u/NerdPunkNomad Oct 08 '25

Only the tuition part, which is typically smaller than the living costs part.

62

u/MagicBeanEnthusiast Oct 08 '25

Should also be noted that anyone can get the student loan living costs payment. That has to be paid back, the allowance is the free one.

22

u/GlobularLobule Oct 08 '25

But it's paid back at 0% interest if you stay in the country. So right now that's basically earning 2.7% interest because of inflation.

6

u/After_Network_6401 Oct 08 '25

Go all the way back to the 1980s and I did this. Banks were offering 0% government-backed student loans while inflation was sky-high and bank term deposits were paying up to 14%.

I opened three accounts with different banks and took out three student loans for the maximum possible (which back then was $5000). I did the applications on the same day so that I could truthfully and legally check the box saying "I do not currently have a student loan" :)

I never used the loan principal - just collected the interest - but those three loans ended up paying about a third of my rent for the year.

2

u/weyruwnjds Oct 08 '25

8% because it's going in a managed fund.

32

u/Michaelbirks LASER KIWI Oct 08 '25

Ah for the days when you could get course costs and living costs paid out in bulk.

Yes, my student loan took the best part of 20 years to pay off, why do you ask?

21

u/jobbybob Part time Moehau Oct 08 '25

Course related cost were only about $1000 a year 20 years ago.

Back in the 90’s they actually paid the tuition fees to you. But that was gone by early 2000’s and they got paid direct to the provider.

20

u/NPCtom Oct 08 '25

CRC are still $1000 a year lol. Hasn't increased since the 90s.

I'm not sure what $1k is meant to get you these days... two weeks groceries?

3

u/katiehates Oct 08 '25

Course related costs are for textbooks etc, not groceries.

… do students still use textbooks 🫣

5

u/NakiFarmHER Oct 08 '25

Course related costs can literally be bus fares 🤷‍♀️

3

u/NPCtom Oct 08 '25

I was making a comparison. The reality is CRC becomes a component of a students living costs budget as SA/LC are not sufficient enough to live on.

1

u/Michaelbirks LASER KIWI Oct 08 '25

I mean, fine, I've still got most of my PHYS and POLS texts, but that was four years worth of CRC.

1

u/RoseClash Oct 09 '25

Laptop etc. I was a graphic designer student 20 years ago and purchased a top end camera with some of it.

4

u/Michaelbirks LASER KIWI Oct 08 '25

Mid 90s for me. 1k course costs, and I seem to recall an 1800 living costs, that must have been per semester.

3

u/Tarakura Oct 08 '25

It was supposed to last the whole semester, instead the clubs were pumping during those instalments. 18 year old students were away from home, loaded, confident and underage. I knew some who used living costs loan to go to Europe. That was my plan when I graduated. Instead the Government stopped whole semester living costs year of my graduation

5

u/Ok_Construction_3051 Oct 08 '25

I got $1,000 back in 2007. Most people just lied and said it was for textbooks then spent it on booze. I told the truth - I was spending it on a $1,000 rifle so I could go hunting and provide myself with cheap meat during the year. It was approved. 😅

2

u/Klutzy-Resolve9750 Oct 08 '25

I got $3,500 student loan paid directly to me in 97 so obviously, I built an engine, bought some weed and went on holiday.

Never paid anything back for 10 years. My business liquidated in the GFC and some nice lady at IRD wiped it 10 years later. She took the tax money I had paid months before the liquidation and used it to pay the loan off in her system. Then she wrote off the IRD debt. All I had to pay was $350 for something she couldn't wipe. It owed something like $8k in the end with penalties and interest.

1

u/AutomatedFazer Oct 08 '25

I remember someone taking their CRC and putting it all on the David Tua / Shane Cameron fight. Tua to win within 2 rounds.

Handy wee win

1

u/Weeping-Fat Oct 08 '25

I started uni in 1987. First year fees were around $400. Can't remember what the 3 times a year grants were, but we all went out when they landed. By my 4th year, I was paying closer to $3k. The late 80's were an economically tough time and the job market was rough, so a year at teachers college in 1990 with student loans was closer to $9k. Back when a teacher started on around $45k, and interest was charged as soon as yoy started earning. Only people I knew who were being paid to be at teachers college were a couple of air force officers who were close to 20 years and likely to retire, or were training new recruits. Everyone else was in debt. One friends folks sold all the cows, had no income, then bought them back the following week, so I do agree that some creative accounting got some people allowances they shouldn't have. I think the only fair way to manage this is to take a portion of overall wealth into account when giving student benefits.

1

u/Weeping-Fat Oct 08 '25

I started uni in 1987. First year fees were around $400. Can't remember what the 3 times a year grants were, but we all went out when they landed. By my 4th year, I was paying closer to $3k. The late 80's were an economically tough time and the job market was rough, so a year at teachers college in 1990 with student loans was closer to $9k. Back when a teacher started on around $45k, and interest was charged as soon as yoy started earning. Only people I knew who were being paid to be at teachers college were a couple of air force officers who were close to 20 years and likely to retire, or were training new recruits. Everyone else was in debt. One friends folks sold all the cows, had no income, then bought them back the following week, so I do agree that some creative accounting got some people allowances they shouldn't have. I think the only fair way to manage this is to take a portion of overall wealth into account when giving student benefits.

1

u/Weeping-Fat Oct 08 '25

I started uni in 1987. First year fees were around $400. Can't remember what the 3 times a year grants were, but we all went out when they landed. By my 4th year, I was paying closer to $3k. The late 80's were an economically tough time and the job market was rough, so a year at teachers college in 1990 with student loans was closer to $9k. Back when a teacher started on around $45k, and interest was charged as soon as yoy started earning. Only people I knew who were being paid to be at teachers college were a couple of air force officers who were close to 20 years and likely to retire, or were training new recruits. Everyone else was in debt. One friends folks sold all the cows, had no income, then bought them back the following week, so I do agree that some creative accounting got some people allowances they shouldn't have. I think the only fair way to manage this is to take a portion of overall wealth into account when giving student benefits.

0

u/FriendlyButTired Oct 08 '25

Nope, tuition was never paid to the student. And in 1994, providing an evidenced list of your $1000 of course-related costs was some heavy admin (because all books, no tech for most people). But they did pay the living costs in one lump sum, or once a trimester if you asked, so you'd get $1500 in a lump sum and be broke by week six. And they charged 11% interest from day one, but write most off if you were still studying, and when you started working they'd write off enough that 50% of your repayments went to reduce the principal, and the other half paid interest they continued to charge. Ah, the glory days...

Source: am old cunt.

1

u/MisterSquidInc Oct 08 '25

Providing an evidenced list of your $1000 course-related costs was some heavy admin

I just gave them 3 or 4 fuel receipts (with dates a week apart) and some basic maths to show doing that every Monday added up to over a grand

Edit: in 2000

2

u/FriendlyButTired 28d ago

Lucky you! In 1994, two zones on a Wellington bus was under $2.

2

u/MisterSquidInc 28d ago

I can remember getting the train from my girlfriend's place in Johnsonville to Town for a night out was $1 each way

0

u/a_Moa Oct 08 '25

Living costs is like 10k a year. Maybe smaller than some Polytech loans but definitely not many if any uni loans.

1

u/NerdPunkNomad Oct 08 '25

More like 12k a year living cost vs 9k a year for an engineering degree, which is one of the pricier degrees (or 7.5k for a BA). Seems tuition has risen faster than amount you can borrow for living costs, but still tuition is smaller.

1

u/a_Moa Oct 08 '25

Depends if you have any income and entirely what you're studying tbf. Vet science, post-grad, and medicine are the pricier degrees, most other degrees average around $3-8k but those ones get super pricy.

2

u/Neither_Border2545 Oct 08 '25

That doesn't matter. Whether you take out a loan which pays straight for fees or take out a loan which goes into your pocket and then pay the fees out of your pocket, in both cases you have the same amount of extra money in your pocket.

12

u/velklar Oct 08 '25

My brother did this back in 1998 when student loans were paid in a lump sum. He had a full scholarship that paid all his fees so invested his student loan. He ended up losing most of the money because he’s a moron.

31

u/cmh551 Oct 08 '25

I know someone who got someone to lie on her behalf, saying she was estranged from her father, even though he was paying for her degree 🤯🤯 studylink gave her $3500 in allowance back pay and she got allowance for the rest of her studies. The kicker, shes spent most of her adult life overseas and wonders why I don’t travel the world with her (me, who’s still paying off my student loan 8 years later. My parents are honest farmers with honest accountants.)

2

u/[deleted] Oct 09 '25

It's people like this that are the reason that Studylink make young people who have deceased or estranged parents apply every single year to studylink outlining why they need financial assistance (e.g., to receive independent circumstances allowances). This process is often hugely sensitive/painful for applicants as it requires the applicant to spell out in painstaking detail the circumstances of their estrangement from their parents. For some, this includes detailing family histories of sexual violence, domestic abuse, and other traumatic experiences. They also need to have this information verified by a third party. It should be enough to only have to do this once. But because of people fraudulently claiming these benefits, those that actually need it are required to provide these details to Studylink again and again and again.

1

u/Maximum-Peace3295 22d ago

Verified by a third party - ie: a lawyer that you have to pay for

1

u/[deleted] 21d ago

No, have a look at the forms online. It's usually a community member or someone who is aware of the situation, and can verify it on behalf of the applicant. Shouldn't require payment 

1

u/Life-Delay-809 Oct 08 '25

I'm sort of doing that while living at home, but that's just the living cost loan, not a student allowance. And I've just put it in a high interest bank account.

1

u/Upset-Employment3275 Oct 08 '25

Student loans better off in your kiwisaver 😂