Sweat Equity: Student Scholarships in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Universities

This paper responds to calls from past and present students to increase the value of postgraduate scholarships in Aotearoa New Zealand. Here we provide context for understanding the scholarship landscape in Aotearoa, including how scholarships are understood in relation to dominant neoliberal framings of higher education and persistent inequities within the sector. We present data which provides insight into the current inequities in Summer, Masters and PhD scholarship values. The average value of PhD scholarships has remained stagnant between 2011 and 2019 resulting in the average being $11,238 less than the Living Wage in 2019. We show that the average length of time full-time PhD students take to complete their doctorates exceeds the three-year tenure of scholarships. We argue the status-quo of low scholarships, supplemented by postgraduate ‘sweat’, excludes people from participating in postgraduate education, preventing them and their communities from realising the public benefits that such an education can produce. We suggest that these inadequacies could be addressed through (1) raising Summer, Masters and PhD scholarships to the living wage; (2) extending tenure of PhD scholarships; and (3) reinstating the postgraduate student allowance.