The populations of returning students over the period from 1997 to 2005 are compared with the populations of non-returning former tertiary students who had the same opportunity to return. Such comparisons are conducted for students who have returned after having a break of one to seven years (seven comparison groups).

Summary of Key Findings 

Based on the results of a series of analyses, a profile of returning students has been created. Accordingly, the returning students who have the highest likelihood of returning are likely to be former students that fit into the following categories:

• have an outstanding student loan prior to their return borrowed for previous tertiary studies
• did not complete the qualifications studied previously
• undertook degree level study at universities
• studied towards qualifications in health, education, society and culture rather than management and commerce fields.
  

The major finding of this study is that a student loan debt does not discourage students from future studies. This suggests that the burden of the loan does not have negative effect on students, possibly due to their confidence to repay the loan on completion of their studies.

This study also suggests that policy decisions were likely to trigger short-term increases in returning behaviour and that the most affected populations were likely to be those who left tertiary education in the year when the policy decisions were announced.  

Furthermore, when both borrowing and educational factors are controlled, the effects of demographic factors such as ethnicity, age and gender on the returning pathways of students are found to be negligible.

This study suggests follow-up studies to monitor the returning behaviour in the tertiary education sector in New Zealand and the effect of educational policies on individuals’ behaviour.