Source: Tertiary Education Commission
Last updated 16 June 2023
Last updated 16 June 2023
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Youth Guarantee (YG) funding provides fees-free tertiary study at Levels 1–3 to enable young people to progress to higher-level education or employment.
Youth Guarantee (YG) funding provides fees-free tertiary study at Levels 1–3 to enable young people to progress to higher-level education or employment.
The Youth Guarantee Fund is part of a wider suite of initiatives that includes Vocational Pathways and Secondary-Tertiary Programmes (such as Trades Academies). These initiatives provide opportunities for learners to achieve a minimum of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) Level 2 or equivalent, to enable progression to higher levels of study, training or employment.
More information on the wider programmes is available at Youth Guarantee.
From 1 January 2023 the following changes will be applied to the Youth Guarantee fund:
lowering the credit value from 100 to 80 credits per equivalent full-time student (EFTS) at Levels 1 and 2 to better reflect learning profiles and ensure better alignment with expectations in schools (there is no change to the EFTS credit value for Level 3 learners)
increased learner YG lifetime entitlement to 2.5 EFTS
extending the YG upper age limit to include learners up to 24 years of age (at the time they commence the YG programme)
enabling part-time enrolment to support flexible arrangements and learner needs
increasing the transport assistance subsidy from $860 to $1,000 per EFTS to better enable providers to support their learners’ transport needs
increasing the pastoral care subsidy from $537 to $2,000 per EFTS to ensure adequacy of funding
renaming the pastoral care subsidy as “wellbeing and pathways support subsidy” to signal a broader purpose of this funding
making the wellbeing and pathways support subsidy non-recoverable to ensure funding security for
a condition of the wellbeing and pathways support subsidy is that tertiary education organisations (TEOs) are expected to work with learners and their whānau to develop a pathway plan to map “where to from here”. The plan would support each learner’s needs to move to further study and/or employment. The level of detail would depend on:
each learner’s individual needs
their end goals
support they need throughout their study to meet those goals
any support the learner requires post-study to take the next steps towards further study and/or employment.
Youth Guarantee interaction with Fees Free
Courses funded under Youth Guarantee that started on or after 1 July 2020 do not use a learner’s entitlement to Fees Free, and do not impact a learner’s future eligibility for Fees Free.
For information on the interaction of Fees Free and Youth Guarantee before 1 July 2020, see Interactons with other Funds – MPTT and YG interaction with Fees Free.