Cost of living: Bay of Plenty tertiary students relying on charities for food

A line of students snakes around the table piled high with food. They know the drill and bring bags to fill. Breads, meats and dairy products — the process is just like shopping except no payment is required. Every week a local charity sets up shop on campus and every week the students come. This is the reality for many tertiary students who are struggling to meet the rising cost of living.

Struggling tertiary students are lining up for food parcels each week as the cost-of-living crisis eats into their budgets.

Food charity Good Neighbour has given away $136,000 of food in the past financial year to students at the University of Waikato and Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology in Tauranga.

Student associations say the trend is occurring at tertiary institutes nationwide as it gets harder for ākonga to cope with “skyrocketing” food prices. .

The situation is compounded by rental costs in Tauranga that exceed the national average and are forcing some residents to live in boats and vans.

Good Neighbour general manager Renee Hanna said a growing number of students had been using the food service since the charity started in 2020, particularly in the past year.

“It seems to have gone from [an] additional bonus to ‘we now rely on this, we need this food’.”

Good Neighbour general manager Renee Hanna says there's more need than ever for the food it repurposes for students. Photo / Alex Cairns

Hanna said students were unlikely to ask for help and were often suffering in silence, with those unable to access the student allowance “suffering the most”.

For students under 24, eligibility for a student allowance was calculated on parental income.

Families who earned above the eligibility threshold were often “struggling to put food on their own tables, let alone support their tertiary students”.

Hanna said these were the students “falling through the loophole”.

‘You get so financially stressed that everything’s just hard’

Student Jess, 20, who spoke on condition her surname was not published, was ineligible for a student allowance and relied heavily on her student loan.

She worked casual shifts at an after-school care facility, without which she could not afford to cover her basic living costs.

“You get so financially stressed that everything’s just hard.”

She was reluctant to ask her parents for help and felt guilty asking for money.

“We complain about a lot ... the cost of life and studying, [so] it’s actually nice to be seen and heard,” she said.

‘It is getting harder’

Waikato Student Union president George Liu said students had always done it tough, “but it is getting harder”.

More students had been experiencing financial hardship over the past few years due to the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis.

The union offered services such as the Kai Cupboard, where students can pick food up for free, and staff provided regular barbecues.

“In 2023 alone, WSU delivered 1200 Good Neighbour food parcels to students in Tauranga.”

Waikato Student Union president George Liu says students' lives have been getting progressively harder.

Increased rents in the Bay were “effectively driving students out of certain rental markets”.

Third-year student Faith Healey, 20, said finding accommodation in Tauranga was hard because, in her view, some landlords did not think students were reliable enough to pay rent on time every week.

During the summer when her student loan was paused, Healey was able to secure only 16 hours a week of work. Without her partner’s financial support, she said she would have had only $5 left weekly after covering her costs.

“You can’t even go on the benefit as you’re still a registered student,” she said.

Uni is ‘such a distant reality for some’

University of Waikato student Rhea, 20, who also did not want her surname published due to privacy reasons, said it had become harder over the past three years to survive and noted that parking was an issue. Taking public transport was not always an option due to her schedule.

Rhea said she did not know how people got through years of study without family support.

Finding and affording parking are concerns for tertiary students in Tauranga's CBD. Photo / Bevan Conley

“It’s such a distant reality for some to even go to university, which is really sad because everyone should have the same opportunity ... to have this education, and living at home is not always an option.”

Once rent and necessary expenses are taken care of, many are left with little for groceries. Rhea said “a whole bunch of us” would often benefit from food handouts by Good Neighbour with the student union.

“Yesterday, I got a bag with toilet paper, milk, oats, muesli bars, baked beans,” she said. “If we go into uni and we’ve no lunch, we could probably go ask for some noodles or something like that.”

‘Physical, mental and general wellbeing’ affected

Students throughout New Zealand are facing similar challenges.

A Victoria University of Wellington Students’ Association spokesperson said “students are working more and are finding it harder to make ends meet”.

Otago University Students’ Association president Keegan Wells said: “The skyrocketing price of healthy food is nearly impossible to maintain on a student’s budget, especially during winter”, noting this negatively affects students’ “physical, mental and general wellbeing”.

Wells said the association had noticed a significant increase “in food parcel requests over the last few years, particularly as local rent continues to increase coupled with rising food costs”. It also provided food vouchers sponsored by a private donor.

University of Canterbury Students’ Association president Luc MacKay said the Studylink income was not enough to live on, with rent of $180 to $200 a week consuming half their income, meaning part-time work was necessary.

Students experiencing poverty

Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology faculty dean Bart Vosse said some students experienced poverty.

Engagement facilitators supported students with budgeting, student loans and fees, and hardship assistance.

A University of Waikato spokesperson said students leaving home for study were particularly affected by the cost of living, and the university offered residential scholarships and self-catered studio rooms that accommodated 91 students.

Director of student services Brett McEwan said 45 per cent of students living in its Tauranga accommodation had a university-funded scholarship.

To offer a cost-effective solution for students living outside the main centres, a joint transport initiative between the University of Waikato, Toi Ohomai and Toi Moana Bay of Plenty Regional Council was created.

A regional bus service offering free or reduced fares to tertiary students aims to "alleviate fuel and parking concerns", according to Bay of Plenty Regional Council's Stuart Nightingale. Photo / NZME

The Regional Tertiary Commuter Baybus offered services from Whakatāne, Katikati and Rotorua to Tauranga, and Murupara and Tauranga to Rotorua.

All except for the Katikati-to-Tauranga route were free for those with a valid student ID from an NZQA-registered institution.

Council transport operations manager Stuart Nightingale said fares were kept affordable with significant concessions for tertiary students and aimed at alleviating parking and fuel concerns.

Govt not in a position to ‘splash the cash’

Asked during a visit to Tauranga if students needed more government support, Associate Minister of Education David Seymour told the Bay of Plenty Times he recognised how hard it was for students and recalled still having student debt when he was elected to Parliament.

He cited the rising cost of rents as the primary reason students were finding it tougher now, but aside from the annual standard adjustments where student allowances were increased by 5 per cent on April 1, the Government was not in a position to “[splash] the cash” at any particular problem.

Seymour said he did not know how students managed rental costs and that it’s “very, tough”, however, “the Government is up against it trying to balance the budget, so there’s no area where you’re going to see more spending”.

Catherine Sylvester is a multimedia journalist at the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post. She has a background in feature writing, radio and television, and has taught media at a tertiary level.