Abstract
This chapter considers the potential of student loan debt to be a subject that divides students more than it brings them together politically. Debt was not an easy topic for New Zealand students to discuss, and I suggest part of this difficulty was variation in their experiences. I provide a framework of five student experiences of debt in New Zealand: ‘lucky’ students, pragmatists, investors, deliberate deferrers and strugglers. By tracing the contours of these experiences, I argue the New Zealand case highlights the risk that student debt becomes framed in individual terms of ‘me’ and ‘them’, with student feelings of shame, regret and frustration considered a matter of private responsibility, rather than different facets of a shared, public issue.
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Nissen, S. (2019). Student Loans: An Awkward Subject. In: Student Debt and Political Participation. Palgrave Studies in Young People and Politics. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96322-8_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96322-8_2
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-96321-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-96322-8
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