Steven Joyce is ignoring the future labour force needs of New Zealand with his punitive plans for student loans and course fees, says Maryan Street, Labour's Tertiary Education spokesperson.

"His plans to increase the cost of fees for expensive courses such as medicine, fly in the face of present and likely future doctor shortages," said Maryan Street.

"In addition to that, a lifetime cap on access to loans while doing undergraduate study, would impact more on medical students whose course are longer than average undergraduate programmes.

"As the New Zealand Medical Students' Association has said recently, 'We want more doctors for New Zealanders and these changes will make that a harder goal to achieve'.

"In answers to questions in Parliament today, Joyce gave no reassurance that critical labour shortages were part of his thinking when he floated his latest set of tertiary education proposals," said Maryan Street.

"Increasing fees on already expensive courses and limiting the time when students can access student loans are short-sighted cost-cutting measures, the consequences of which will have to be borne by another generation of students and taxpayers," said Maryan Street.