Auckland University will increase fees for domestic students by four percent next year.
The university's council adopted the increase at a meeting yesterday, despite being disrupted by around a hundred student protestors.
Auckland University Students Association president Joe McCrory says the council voted for a five percent increase for international students in 2013.
"For a lot of students, particularly who are making their way into tertiary study, it's going to impact on their decision where to study, and also what to study. Some courses are very expensive,'' he says.
Mr McCrory says politicians secured their own future with a free education, but they're now taking that away from their own children.
"I think why you're seeing occupations like this - increased student activism and increase student anxiety around fee levels, it's just the amount of debt that is facing students in this country when they're facing their futures,'' he says.
Student debt in New Zealand exceeds $11 billion.