Accommodation and Cost of Living in New Zealand

Accommodation

Accommodation and Cost of Living in New Zealand
Some secondary schools offer boarding facilities, while others arrange homestays for international students.

Usually universities and polytechnics offer student accommodation on campus. Some students prefer to live off campus and will seek advice from the student support services, provided by most tertiary institutes, to help with arranging homestays or give advice on finding student flats.

It is generally recommended that international students allow NZ$9,000 to $10,000 per year for living and accommodation costs. This includes accommodation, food, travel, textbooks and limited entertainment.

In Summary
Work hard and play hard is the lifestyle choice of many international students in New Zealand. If you are looking for world-class education and training, and also want new experiences, fun, a relaxed lifestyle and a safe and healthy environment, then you should consider New Zealand as your study destination.

Where Can I Get Further Information?

There are New Zealand Education Centres within some of the New Zealand Embassies. They are in Bangkok, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Taipei, Tokyo and Hamburg.

If you wish to surf the World Wide Web, visit the New Zealand Education website on

http://www.educationnz.org.nz

Or you may wish to contact Education New Zealand (ENZ). ENZ is an organisation whose role is to co-ordinate the promotion of quality New Zealand educational services to international students, institutions, governments and international organisations.

Student loans

The Student Loan Scheme is available to all New Zealand permanent residents and can cover course fees, course related expenses and can also provide a weekly living allowance for full time students. The loan must be repaid at a rate dependent on income and repayments are normally recovered via the income tax system by wage deductions. Low income earners and students in full time study can have the interest on their loans written off.

On 26 July 2005 the Labour Party announced that they would abolish interest on Student Loans, if re-elected at the September election, which they were. From April 2006, the interest component on Student Loans was abolished for students who live in New Zealand.

This has eased pressure on the government from current students. However it has caused resentment from past students many of whom have accumulated large interest loan portions in the years 1992-2006. As stated before many have reluctantly been forced to seek employment overseas in order to pay back their loans, with the UK and Australia gaining benefit from young, educated diaspora.