Tupou Sopoaga used Fees Free to get success

<urban beat music playing in the background>

Tupou Sopoaga: Niu FM the beat of the pacific it's twenty-three minutes past one on your Sunday afternoon. You're hanging out with me Tup's 'til four o'clock today.

Pretty much it's kind of like you've finished rugby, you've been playing rugby your whole life literally my whole adult life and kinda it was either go work at a factory which I was doing for a couple of months and my wife's like man this your life is

more than rugby or just going to collect a paycheque and you know you've got a lot more skills to offer why don't you go and study or like fine-tune the skills that you've got.

Ali Sopoaga: I think when we got the news that Tup's didn't get re-signed we kind of had a bit of a sit down just to discuss what we would like the future to look like and I said you know what what do you want to do what are you passionate about so rather than just working a job to pay the bills for him it was definitely radio so he decided to step out and do that.

It was probably a barrier initially for us to you know pay for the study so for that to be removed just gave us one less roadblock into him studying the fact that it was fees free for the first year was just unreal. I think it was a short-term sacrifice but

for a long-term result and for him to be really fulfilled and satisfied in what he did.

Tupou: Because I've been through it I understand what it's like to make sacrifices or have a family or be a bit older than the students one of the main reasons why I wasn't going to study is because you got to pay for it but because Fees Free were able to pay for my course it was just like a weight off my shoulder knowing that I didn't have to pay for the course that was the biggest worry for me and my family I got people to feed I didn't have anything to pay off or I didn't have any debt to worry about it was kind of like once I finished, I finished.

I used to dream about it when I was young with my family listening to Niu FM around the table before we go to school and now I'm on air in the weekends, it's pretty crazy.