Student Loans: An awkward subject

Abstract

This chapter considers the potential of student loan debt to be a subject that divides students more than it brings them together politically. Debt was not an easy topic for New Zealand students to discuss, and I suggest part of this diffculty was variation in their experiences. I provide a framework of five student experiences of debt in New Zealand: ‘lucky’ students, pragmatists, investors, deliberate deferrers and strugglers. By tracing the contours of these experiences, I argue the New Zealand case highlights the risk that student debt becomes framed in individual terms of ‘me’ and ‘them’, with student feelings of shame, regret and frustration considered a matter of private responsibility, rather than different facets of a shared, public issue.