The particular target was those who might struggle to afford tertiary education but it was a universal policy for all students who had not studied at tertiary level before, regardless of their means.
As with KiwiBuild, the fees-free policy was one Labour promoted most on the campaign trail.
It was criticised by the National Party as an election bribe for students, which would subsidise university "for kids from wealthy families who would have gone to university anyway".
And as with Kiwibuild, demand has turned out to be somewhat lower than Labour expected.
Rather than boost enrolment numbers in the first year, the final tally showed overall student numbers dropped from 310,000 in 2017 to 305,920 in 2018.
In total, 47,000 students or trainees used the fees-free enrolments in 2018 – rather fewer than the 80,000 Labour had initially expected. The cost was $270.8m.
The split in how it was spent also differed from what was expected.
At first, it was anticipated that 38 per cent of the students using it would be at universities and the remainder at polytechnics or other training establishments.
In the end, almost 50 per cent were at universities, a quarter were at polytechnics and the rest at PTEs or Industry training organisations.
That rather gives fuel to National's criticisms of it.
And many institutions have raised the high cost to them of administering the scheme.
Hipkins claimed it appeared to have "stabilised" a decline in student enrolments, and pointed to low unemployment as meaning more people were going straight into work rather than education.
But the Government does not seem optimistic things will change dramatically in the next few years.
The Ministry's forecasts for tertiary education show it expects enrolments to drop slightly again in both 2019 and 2020 before lifting slightly.
Labour has allowed for a small increase in the Budget for the policy's next year - Budget 2019 allocates $346 million for the year (up from $300m) - but that was $42 million less than originally budgeted when the policy was first put in place.
In total, the Government has taken out $200 million over five years which was initially budgeted for fees-free.
That has already been re-allocated to reform the industry training organisation sector.
Labour's original policy was to extend fees-free to cover two years' worth of fees after 2020, and then three years from 2023.
As yet, there is no funding allocated for that post-2020 rollout.
Officially the extension of the policy remains on the books, but Labour must surely be doing a stock-take on whether it is worth it, or at least whether it should be more targeted.
As with KiwiBuild, the policy is a nice bonus for those who benefit from it directly. Hipkins highlighted the lower levels of student debt – saying 30,000 fewer students took out student loans.
But it is very expensive, and if it is failing to achieve its overall purpose of boosting participation, especially among those on lower incomes, the Government has to ask whether it is worth it.
Labour could look on the bright side. At least it hasn't fallen as far short of its targets as KiwiBuild.
