First year free study may be a popular policy, but hundreds of students made false declarations to get their university fees covered in the 2018 and 2019 academic years - and some haven't paid the money back.

In response to written parliamentary questions obtained by Stuff, Education Minister Chris Hipkins has confirmed that at least 473 applicants for Fees Free made false declarations in order to receive get the grant in the first two years of the government's Fees Free programme.

Hipkins said he was advised by the Tertiary Education Commission of the 342 false declarations in 2018 and 131 in 2019.

Yet charges have only been laid against three individuals for the 2019 year.

A spokesman for Hipkins said that numbers of people caught making false declarations showed that the checks and balances in the system were working.

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In 2019, three individuals who made false declaration racked up $23,000 in payments, but the TEC decided not to pursue those students to get the money back. It is unclear at this stage what these circumstances surrounding those cases were.

"It's unfathomable these individuals have been able to get off scot free," said National's spokesman for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment, Simeon Brown.

"Even though it is an offence, 473 applicants have made false declarations about their eligibility for Fees Free in the first two years of the policy. Despite this number, less than one per cent of those who made false declarations have been charged," Brown said.

The fees-free programme was a flagship promise of Labour when it was elected to parliament in 2017. It provides the first year of university or equivalent trades training fees free for eligible students. While National has criticised the programme for not increasing student enrolments, the Government has defended the scheme, saying that lower enrolments have been a result of a tight Labour market encouraging young people to get a job instead.

There are a series of criteria for students have to meet to qualify for fees-free study. Potential applicants must meet residency requirements, be enrolled in school in or after 2017, not have done more than half a year of full-time tertiary study and enrol in a certain quality of program.

"Education Minister Chris Hipkins has some serious questions to answer about how this scheme operates. We know almost 500 people have been caught, but how many more have got away with lying on their application, and how much more taxpayer money has been paid out when it shouldn't have?," Brown said

"Fees Free has been an expensive failure. Taxpayers are not only paying for a policy that has resulted in fewer students, they're also paying for students who shouldn't have been eligible in the first place."