Hon Steven Joyce (Minister for Tertiary Education Skills and Employment) replied: I am not currently considering an exemption to the 7 EFTS student loan life-time limit for health professionals. The life-time limit encourages students to complete their qualification as quickly as possible in order to minimise the costs of tertiary study for both themselves and the Government. I consider that 7 EFTS is flexible enough to cover most students who do double degrees and the longest undergraduate courses, such as medicine (for those taking the most direct path). Additional entitlement is available for those who progress on to higher levels of study. It is important to note that Medical students currently attract very high government tuition subsidies (over $35,000 per year) and a Medical Trainee Intern Grant of $26,756 per EFTS is also available to medical students in their sixth year of study. Medical graduates will be able to repay additional study loans relatively quickly, as they earn on average more than twice as much as graduates in humanities. There are also several funding schemes available to medical graduates such as: • the Voluntary Bonding Scheme for junior doctors and other health professionals which pays up to $50,000 towards the student loans of junior doctors who work in hard-to-staff communities or train in hard-to-staff specialties. • the Advanced Trainee Fellowship Scheme provides funding for medical trainees to train overseas in a specialty area of shortage in New Zealand, and return to a bonded position in New Zealand.