University Arts Funding May Be In For a Hit

NEWS | AROHA / LOVE

Written by Evie Richardson (she/her) | @evi3m4y | News Editor

It’s that time of year once again, which unless you’re a politician, journalist or keen business mogul, you will most likely be completely oblivious to. It’s budget time. 

Each year, the government announces how exactly they will be spending their money, allocating certain amounts to different sectors and programmes. This occurs on Budget Day.

Of course, there is no endless pot of money to dip into, and thus when one sector receives a budget boost, another will be the victims of cuts. It’s not only on budget day that this occurs: We’ve seen seemingly endless amounts of cuts in the time since the coalition government took office. Governments are constantly reshuffling money- it’s frankly most of what they do. 

But Budget Day, which occurs in May, sets an agenda of where the priorities lie for the government. And although you may not be privy to it, the decisions made in the debating chamber and hauled through select committees, will most definitely have an impact on your life. 

One area that is used to having funding thrown in and pulled out is the Tertiary sector. Despite mounting student loans, sky high fees, and a raging cost of living crisis - the government is spending a lot more on universities than what is coming out of your pocket. 

Currently, Government funding amounts to about 33% of Universities income, domestic student fees are 18%, and international fees add a further 10%. 

In March of this year, the government announced $2.7 billion in funding for tertiary education this year. However, universities fear that this won’t be enough. 

The way tertiary institutions are funded is somewhat complex. The money provided by the government is managed by the government run Tertiary Education Commission (TEC). While $2.7 billion sounds like a large sum, the way universities can spend it is actually heavily regulated. 

Degrees are subsidised by this sum of money - the excess is then paid by student fees. For example, an arts degree is currently funded around $7563, and a student would then pay fees of $6,594 to $7,607 on top of that. 

The TEC is warning that funding cuts to this system are very possible. The TEC and institutions work together to create investment plans. These forecast which areas of study are expecting growth, or they want to attract growth to, and then allocate more funding to them. This means the government can subsidise a larger amount of students to study these degrees. 

The current subjects the government has indicated they want to invest in are science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), health, and teacher education. They’ve also shown interest in funding food qualifications, as well as the construction and infrastructure industries. 

The arts - creative, liberal, literature, the lot - are nowhere to be seen. 

While this plan isn’t yet set in stone, if it continues quietly to tick along in the background, some deans fear a cut to the arts could be a very real possibility. 

The move would follow Australia, where the Morrison government incentivised STEM degrees over arts back in 2020. The move was similar to what could happen here, the government allocating far larger amounts of funding to STEM degrees. This drove the price of some arts degrees to double, and saw a large drop in fees for STEM subjects. While the change was enforced to encourage students to enroll in STEM, it’s largely hailed as a failure - with arts enrollments continuing to rise despite the large expense. 

The Albanese government has pitched a roll back of changes, wanting to make tertiary education more universally accessible again. 

While what specifically is set in store for Universities here in Aotearoa is yet to be seen, its certain change is imminent. But either way, don’t wave goodbye to your passion for arts and take up structural engineering just yet.