"While questioning the Tertiary Education Commission in this week’s Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee, I was told there is ‘no discernible evidence’ the previous Government’s fees-free scheme has improved participation from low socio-economic groups," says ACT Tertiary Education and Skills spokesperson Dr Parmjeet Parmar.

"The Commission also confirmed that the scheme had no impact on overall tertiary education completion rates.

"In short, Labour’s programme has cost taxpayers more than $340 million a year for no real public benefit. That’s a colossal waste of money.

"Of course, there is a personal benefit for the students who take up the scheme. But university students in particular are more likely to end up on higher incomes, so the result is working New Zealanders pay tax for the benefit of the middle and upper class.

"ACT has proposed scrapping the fees-free scheme entirely. What we achieved in our coalition agreement with National was a commitment to replace first year fees-free with final year fees-free, a move that will improve incentives to complete courses and reduce costs for taxpayers."

At the Education and Workforce Committee, Commission CEO Tim Fowler told Dr Parmar, "There is no discernible evidence that fees-free increased the number of people who went into tertiary education, and no discernible evidence that it changed the distribution of what would have been the decile … the number of people going from deciles at all."

This afternoon ACT Party leader David Seymour posted on X, "The Tertiary Education Commission has now admitted there is “no discernible evidence” that Labour’s expensive fees-free scheme made it more likely that those of lower socioeconomic deciles would attend uni, or that it improved attendance at all."

"So why have we spent $2 billion and counting on it? In our coalition agreement we achieved a switch from first year fees-free to final year fees-free, but ACT has long campaigned on scrapping the scheme entirely."

The Tertiary Education Commission told ZB Plus this afternoon that Mr Fowler's comments at select committee were in response to a question from a member and that it would not be appropriate for him to make further comment.

The Tertiary Education Commission administers the Fees Free programme which includes checking eligibility and distributing funding to education organisations. Responsibility for policy and reporting on the effectiveness of the programme sits with the Ministry of Education.