Just A Sliver: Underfunding New Zealand’s Students’ Associations

Johnny O’Hagan Brebner (he/him)

You stand before a gargantuan vending machine. It towers into the sky, shrouded in mist and cloud. A small round plaque sits at the bottom: “minimum purchase $871”. Tucking your change away, a wave of relief, of familiarity, flows over you. While this monolith looks alien, it has something in common with every other vending machine in the world—it doesn’t work. As your money is sucked into the machine for a chocolate Up N Go, the giant internal machinery clunks invisible, a pause, and then an enormous bang as a packet of unsalted peanuts bursts open at the collection tray. You are allergic to peanuts.

This is how student services funding works in New Zealand. Every year, students add upwards of $500 to their student loans to fund non-academic services at their universities. But the system rarely works for students. The process for setting and spending these fees is murky, students often have little control over it, and it underfunds our student associations.

The CSSF is about your money going towards services for you. This year $13 million is going to fund Mauri Ora, VicRec, clubs and societies, childcare, Salient, and every other student service at this university. It’s something you need to know about. 

Acronyms and You

Acronyms are an unavoidable part of any bureaucratic system like the CSSF system.

CSSF means Compulsory Student Service Fees. It’s the legal term for any yearly fee that all students have to pay to fund student services. At Victoria, this is split into the main Student Services Levy (SSL) and the Student Assistance Levy (SAL). At the moment these total $871 for most students. 

The CSSF system was established in 2012 at the same time as voluntary membership (VSM). VSM changed up the law so that student unions membership was no longer compulsory, but opt-in. The CSSF system was introduced with VSM in 2012 to replace membership fees students previously paid to their associations. The important thing to remember is that VSM nearly killed student associations. 

Although it’s not an acronym, the Ministerial Direction is important because it sets out how universities can make decisions about their CSSFs. Any decisions about the size of the CSSF and where it goes must be made either jointly or in consultation with students. It can also be paid out into nine set categories: advocacy and legal advice, careers information, counselling, employment information, financial support and advice, health services, student media, childcare, clubs and societies, and sports, recreation, and cultural activities.

The Symbols, What Do They Mean?

Let’s talk about the data. Because I know everyone skips over actual numbers, let’s look at some nice graphs.

Pretty graphs, but not a great picture for VUW students.

The first graph shows us that despite VUW having the second largest CSSF pool in the country, VUWSA is getting squat compared to other associations.

Otago, the university with the closest CSSF pool, gives a portion to the Otago University Students’ Association (OUSA) over four times larger than VUWSA gets from Victoria. Even if VUWSA received all of Vic’s 2019 clubs and socs funding, they would still fall short of OUSA by around $400,000. The only association which receives a lower total amount of CSSF funding is the Lincoln University Students’ Association (LUSA). Not much of a win for Vic students—LUSA receives 40% of Lincoln’s CSSF against VUWSA’s measly 6%.

The second graph shows how much money each association gets per Equivalent Full Time Student (EFTS). More specifically, it shows that VUWSA has been comparatively strapped for funding since the introduction of the CSSF. At the same time, the Waikato Students’ Union (WSU) shoots ahead, nearly quadrupling how much money they have for each student since 2012. VUWSA has less money to spend on students, is barely growing that amount, and is falling way behind WSU.

In summary, the University is underfunding VUWSA.

But there have been increases haven’t there? Well yeah, but VUWSA still isn’t getting enough. President Michael Turnbull and CEO Matt Tucker point out that these increases only really cover increasing costs like wages. While they’re able to run campaigns and big events like O-Week, this is all on a skeleton crew. Michael says they need more: “Currently the amount that [staff are] working is unhealthy, unsafe, and unsustainable. If we want to continue to deliver a really good student experience, we need more resourcing and the University needs to acknowledge that we are doing them a service.”

So yeah, the University is still underfunding VUWSA.

So What’s The Problem?

Underfunding is a near-universal problem for student associations. OUSA is running a deficit for the third year running. Massey at Wellington’s Students’ Association (MAWSA) can’t even afford to replace their “crusty as barbeque”. New Zealand Union of Students’ Associations President Andrew Lessells says that if radical change isn’t seen soon, most polytech associations will collapse in a few years. As well as overworking staff and executives, it means associations have had to focus on core services rather than new projects. It also limits their capacity in areas not in the Ministerial Direction. Representation services like the class rep system also can’t be funded. Neither can transport or menstrual products. This is despite, as Andrew points out, these being services we expect to be provided.

So it shouldn’t be surprising at this point, but most student associations are severely underfunded in New Zealand.

This, however, gets a bit tricky. Assessing how the CSSF should work is a bit like tax. How you want it collected and spent depends on your own philosophy. Just because the CSSF at VUW isn’t going to student associations, doesn’t mean it isn’t being spent well elsewhere. Well, kind of.

First off, associations are clearly still underfunded for the services they do provide.

Associations also argue that universities often give money to services that would be better run by associations. For VUWSA, that’s clubs and societies. MAWSA President Tessa Guest points out the recent failure of Massey Wellington’s new Wellbeing Hub. Opened October last year, it’s had next-to-no engagement, “to me that’s because they went ahead and did something without asking what students wanted practically or taking them along on the design process.”

Even then, the bigger issue is actually that students don’t have control over the CSSF. Let’s look at Massey again. Tessa’s MAWSA Executive was simply presented proposals and given 19 days to coordinate and run its consultation. They ended up having to go back to the University refusing to support any changes: “I think they implied they were happy with us making that decisionn on behalf of students, but we definitely weren’t.”

“That speaks to a lack of value of the student voice because it’s a consistent problem that seems to keep happening in every change that they keep trying to make.”

Andrew says that MAWSA’s situation is not unusual, arguing that the “in consultation” option in the Ministerial Directive gives universities an “easy out” with tokenistic student engagement. Massey’s current arrangement, and most New Zealand universities’ arrangements, are in-consultation models. While students can be influential, universities are not required to follow through on it. And while VUWSA and OUSA say they are influential under in-consultation models and have a positive relationship with their unis, their stagnating funding suggests more is needed.

Even where there is better consultation, Andrew says it’s rarely done meaningfully. For MAWSA, it was the Wellbeing Hub. Wellbeing came up in student surveys, but when Massey tried to put it into practice it completely fell over. At Otago, it’s seen when unspent student service money is up for grabs. Different services can bid for those funds, and larger and already well-funded services are funded. OUSA says this is because student surveys don’t provide detailed information on smaller and more vulnerable services. This results in a lop-sided, “inequitable” distribution of the CSSF pool at Otago.

Again, a shocker, students are not properly engaged on the CSSF.

CSSF systems are far less than transparent. It’s incredibly hard for students to get any information on CSSF decisions. Often the only published information is on the size of each institution’s CSSF and how much is spent in each category. Nothing on which services are funded, how much each receives, how fees vary across campuses, or on who provides the services.

So not only are students under engaged, it’s not clear how CSSF money is used.

Unsurprisingly many of these problems are compounded for Māori student associations. Te Mana Ākonga (TMĀ), the national Māori student association, says that current funding models undervalue Māori students and fail to support executive members who end up providing extensive support to their peers. TMĀ suggested that some Māori student associations only get 4% the funding that larger associations get. 

Andrew agrees with the TMĀ Tumuaki Takirua (co-presidents) Renata White and Nkhaya Paulsen-More that Māori student services and organisations are particularly vulnerable to underfunding. They put this down to two overlapping problems. First, Māori and Pasifika student services often fall outside the Ministerial Direction for funding. Second, “because tertiary institutions are institutionally racist.” Nkhaya says, “if they don’t have that funding they collapse. It’s consistent yes, but is it good enough? Probably not.”

Universities also fail to consult with Māori students, usually leaving it up to the larger associations to do that work for them. While associations have been improving, they say universities are not taking the same moves. Victoria is slightly ahead, with ACSSL providing two seats to Māori student representatives and a recently funded Financial Administrator for Ngāi Tauira. Still though, “the ideologies of the Treaty is partnership, protection, and participation. The three Ps. It’s the ideologies that do not happen or do not happen well.”

TMĀ believes funding for Māori student services needs to move to a Mana-based model. This means funding services that Māori students need, rather than just blanket services or a per-student amount. Renata pointed to Te Whare Tapa Whā as “a good simple framework that understands the balance that is needed within the four different spheres of mental health, physical health, community, and whānau.” 

“So us, as a whare as a whole, need all those experiences in all those areas in a balanced state to govern and to navigate our space. So if there is mental health support, there is community and events support, there is food on the table, and if they’re not from the area of that tertiary provider they’ve got that [whānau] experience. If those objectives are met, there is a better space to navigate from.”

Another absolutely unsurprising conclusion, Tauira Māori are not properly supported by the CSSF.

There is a laundry list of other problems with the CSSF. Andrew noted one university using upcoming funding negotiations to blackmail a president into not submitting on the inquiry into student accommodation. Others often try to “pump” academic services into student services funding, including wifi and other expenses. CSSF models between unis are even so incredibly inconsistent that there’s no established best practice.

There were some minor changes to the Ministerial Direction, mostly around increasing transparency. However, this followed from consultation with several student associations which requested changes as extensive as repealing VSM.

Instead, WSU may be a guide out of New Zealand’s CSSF woes. Just look at their funding per student, four times bigger than in 2012 and nearly doubled since 2017. Even accounting for fee increases and more students, WSU President Kyla Campbell-Kamariera puts the jump down to their joint decision-making committee with Waikato University. In 2017, WSU and the University created their Student Services Governance Committee, one of the few examples of making decisions jointly with students. With equal parts students and staff, and co-chaired by the Vice Chancellor and WSU President, it is the actual CSSF decision-making body at the University. As well as the funding jump, Kyla believes it provides students equal control over the setting and distribution of all fees, and significant transparency. She also says the Union is sufficiently funded, has not identified underfunding in other services, and sees no need to alter the current arrangements. 

Preferred models will vary from association to association, but the issue remains that students can’t see what’s going on and can’t do that much about it. Associations, especially VUWSA, are severely underfunded. This means overworked staff, overworked execs, and less time to provide the services they should be. 

For a fee that students have to pay for student services, that isn’t really good enough. Neither universities nor the Government seem ready to take the first big step, so it’s pretty much up to students. The advice from presidents was clear; give your association a mandate, make some noise, hold your university to account. In short, collective action is the key to change.

And from Renata and Nkhaya to Tauira Māori, “Tauira Māori has got to remember that they have the mana within them to stand up and speak up about issues that are not only related to them and their journey, but also to support those that have gone before them, and those that are coming into university or tertiary spaces.”

So support your association, support their campaigns, and keep the University on its toes. And if you can bring yourself to, take a peek at VUW’s next annual report.