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Speaker 1: Tertiary institutions have dissed out thirty four million dollars in

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Speaker 1: hardship funding since COVID. The peak was in twenty twenty one,

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Speaker 1: where they gave away nearly nine million dollars. They gave

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Speaker 1: away just under six million last year. So Aidan Donahue

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Speaker 1: is Wellington's Victoria University Students Association Engagement Vice President and

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Speaker 1: is up early for us good morning to aiden good morning.

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Speaker 1: Why are the students having to get the grants?

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Speaker 2: Look beginning the grants because they're obviously in need of

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Speaker 2: extra money, and most of that we're seeing is in

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Speaker 2: regards to MG costs and other sort of financial stresses

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Speaker 2: like that.

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Speaker 1: So let's look at the money. Aut says it's average

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Speaker 1: amount of assistants last year four hundred and fifty bucks.

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Speaker 1: Canterby University provides up to eight hundred dollars through its

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Speaker 1: students Association. So how much are the students really relying

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Speaker 1: on these grants?

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Speaker 2: Many students I've really looked to these grants to really

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Speaker 2: get biasedpecially when unexpected costs occurred. It's really just tough.

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Speaker 2: It can really be a wide variety of things that

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Speaker 2: need a toyship grunts for.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So, and what impact is this lack of money

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Speaker 1: and the cost of living crisis having on students studying.

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Speaker 2: It's an immense impact. I mean, every hour that's worked

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Speaker 2: to make up that loss and money is an hour

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Speaker 2: that's not spent studying. And so for students, it's a

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Speaker 2: really tough decision between working those extra hours or spending

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Speaker 2: that extra time on a better assignment or better you know,

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Speaker 2: engagement with the content of the course.

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Speaker 1: Things obviously got tough during COVID. Are things getting better now?

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Speaker 2: Unfortunately? No. I'm from our winter energy grants which closed

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Speaker 2: in August. We've seen that the number of submissions received

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Speaker 2: from twenty twenty three to twenty twenty five is about tripled,

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Speaker 2: from about two hundred and sixty five applications in twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty three to nine hundred and forty applications in twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty five. And yeah, just to put those own perspective,

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Speaker 2: every application is limited to one per address, and so

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Speaker 2: that's nine hundred and forty households looking for extra support

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Speaker 2: during these times during winter.

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Speaker 1: All right, Well, we wish them all the best of luck,

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Speaker 1: and I thank you so much. Adam Donahue from the

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Speaker 1: Victoria University of Wellington Students Association. He's the Engagement Vice

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Speaker 1: president for more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge.

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