The student loan scheme - your rights and responsibilities
What you need to know
- Which government agencies are involved?
- Your rights and responsibilities
- Providing us with information
Which government agencies are involved?
Four government agencies
Ministry of Education
Is responsible for strategic policies for the Student Loan Scheme.
StudyLink
(Ministry of Social Development) is responsible for the administration and delivery of student loans to students during the year of study. After the end of each academic year StudyLink transfers those loans to Inland Revenue for collection.
New Zealand Customs Service (Customs)
Inland Revenue have a data matching programme to determine if a borrower is eligible for an interest-free student loan.
Inland Revenue
Is responsible for collecting student loan repayments from the year after the money is borrowed and administering interest write-offs
Inland Revenue's responsibilities
- Collection of your repayments
- Advising you how much your loan balance is, including the interest charged
- Sending at least two scheduled statements per year in May and October
- Providing information about your entitlements and responsibilities
- Providing information on how to best manage your student loan
Your rights and responsibilities
Your rights as a borrower
- You can seek advice on your legal obligations
- No person can be given information about your student loan without your consent. If you want to give anyone permission to get information about your loan, call us on 0800 377 778 or StudyLink on 0800 88 99 00.
- You have the right, under the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act 2003, to know in advance the total amount of money, including interest that has to be paid back
- It is your right to see most of the personal information we hold about you, and to ask us to correct any errors
- You can get a statement of your account at any time
- You have access tools to help you manage your loan, including looking at your account information online, and the repayment calculator
Your responsibilities
You must:
- ensure we have your correct name and contact details
- provide us with true information, with nothing left out
- advise your employer that you have a student loan
- ensure you are on the correct tax code
- advise us if your personal tax situation changes in any way, such as if you go overseas for six months or more, and
- meet all your loan responsibilities until your loan is repaid in full.
Challenging an assessment
If you disagree with a repayment obligation assessed by us, you can challenge it. You can either call us on 0800 377 778, or for more information see our leaflet If you disagree with an assessment (IR778).
Providing us with information
What we'll ask for
We ask for certain information from you to work out your liability or entitlements under the Inland Revenue Acts (including the Student Loan Scheme Act 1992). You must by law, give us this information.
What happens to the information you give us?
We may exchange information about you with:
- Work and Income
- StudyLink
- Ministry of Social Development
- New Zealand Customs Service
- Department for Courts
- Ministry of Education
- Accident Compensation Corporation, or
- their contracted agencies.
We may provide information to:
- overseas countries with which New Zealand has an information supply agreement, and
- Statistics New Zealand (for statistical purposes only).
Call monitoring
We record all calls received through our call centres, to monitor and improve the quality of our customer service. The recordings are stored securely for a limited amount of time and are destroyed after use.
Find out more
- Reports on the student loan scheme
- Student Loan Info newsletters
- Summary of 2007 student loan scheme policy changes
Date published: 26 May 2008
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