What do you think of the logic used by the Otago Poly spokesperson about the extra EFTS

ie this bit

The polytechnic … has asked the Tertiary Education Commission to fund an additional 200 domestic student places next year from the money announced in this year’s Budget to help meet roll-growth demand.

The funding would mitigate the impact of base funding cuts and would probably mean domestic tuition-fee increases would be closer to 3% than 4%, Mr Ker said”

ie we want to use the extra EFTS to support our financial position — when it is supposed to be used to meet roll growth.

Are they really expecting students from other parts of the country to have to travel to Otago just because they want to “mitigate the impact of base funding cuts”

Surely the new domestic places should be distributed by where the student demand is strongest — or am I missing a point here?

One would have to assume that the demand is within Otago. The additional funding ($2m?) would certainly mitigate the loss of the base funding, especially if the additional students were added at the margins, i.e added to existing classes.

Thanks Dave for looking at the stats. It certainly suggests they would be far down the line in terms of the extra 200 allocation if it was distributed on the basis of proven demand.