Over the past ten years there have not been many major changes with the student loan scheme. Student loans are provided for students to help them with their tertiary study over a period of time depending on how long their course is. By doing tertiary study the student is getting a higher level of education which is meant to benefit them in the market and economy once they graduate.

The Government is looking at cutting costs of student loans dramatically. This is mainly because the value of loans decreases over time through inflation. The loan scheme was introduced in 1992 and over that time 958,000 people have borrowed a loan repayment.

In 2006 an interest free policy was introduced. There was a lot of public outcry over this as the student loans look to grow to more than 14 billion dollars in the next three years. The Government then took on a ‘Budget 2010’ package in 2010. This aimed to help encourage students by providing better education resulting in better over all performances and results. Academic performance standard were introduced as well as a 2 year stand down for new permanent residents and a 7 EFTS lifetime limit on borrowing. All of these things took effect in January 2011.

The ‘Budget 2011’ package was then introduced with an aim to reduce lending loans to borrowers who were less likely to repay their fees, increasing own self responsibility for debt repayment for each individual. This was enforced by not relending to borrowers who had not