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New Zealand's university education is excellent quality, with rated university campuses in most large cites on the two islands. Amenities for students are high quality, with accommodation easily found and advice and counselling centres standard on all campuses. Most courses leading to a bachelor's degree take three years, with a year of further study earning an honours degree, although a few specialist courses may run for four full years.

Levels awarded are first class, upper second, lower second and third class, with honours passes awarded for outstanding first class passes, although the structure may vary according to the subject studied. For graduates with honours degrees, Master's degrees are usually given after a year's study; for those without honours passes at the bachelor's level, the Master's degree course will take two years. Doctoral degrees are the final achievement, able to be taken by those with honours degrees at bachelor's level or Master's degrees.

Nowadays, entry to New Zealand universities is by selective admission, dependent on an applicant's qualifications and any added requirements specified for each individual course. The University of Auckland, the country's leading university, has the highest number of selective-entry courses. Mature students are not required to meet the strict criteria demanded of potential students entering straight from secondary education institutions.

International students arriving for the specific purpose of university study are charged full international fees and cannot claim assistance from the New Zealand government. The children of migrants granted citizenship are charged a fee which is subsidised by the government, and they have access to the repayable Student Loan Scheme or the needs-based Student Allowance grant based on parental income, which does not have to be paid back.

There are seven accredited universities in New Zealand: Auckland University and the Auckland University of Technology, the University of Otago in Dunedin, Waikato University in Hamilton, Lincoln University in Canterbury province, The University of Christchurch, Massey University in Palmerston North near Auckland and Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand's capital city.

Most of the above were originally provincial colleges linked to the University of New Zealand, the only university in the country until 1961, when it became Auckland University and its colleges became universities in their own right. The Auckland University of Technology, Lincoln University and Waikato University have been newly created since the reconstruction.