It's part of the whole education process isn't it? You're probably living away from home for the first time and learning to live on a budget.

But is it in our long-term interests for students to be literally on the bones of their backsides?

Two-thirds of students who took part in a survey by the Greens and the student unions say they regularly don't have enough money to buy basics.

More than half the money they have goes on rent usually.

Two-thirds run out of cash regularly, can't afford transport and some are trying to feed themselves on 20 bucks a week.

All of this impacts their ability to study and here's that terrible word, the outcome of their time in tertiary study.

Some will give up part way through, emerging into the work world a couple of years behind their peers and often with a debt from studying.

Nobody wins from that.

We want, we need our young people to be attracted to tertiary education, probably more now than ever before.

We're desperate for doctors, nurses, engineers, science graduates the list goes on and on.

• About two thirds of uni students did not have enough money to buy food - survey

So we need to invest in them now, so when they come out there's perhaps a better chance they'll pay back their loans and pay back our faith in them by keeping their skills in New Zealand.

To have our youth, the people we want in skilled and well-paid work, our future leaders living in grinding poverty, makes no sense at all.