university in nz is relatively cheap and student loans are easy to get (an arts degree isn't much more than $20000, although a medical degree is $100k plus)most doing top flight degrees do a stint overseas to gain experience and earn more to pain off their student loans before returning home. Aussie is the same pretty much.
Sports stars can get school scholarships, but so can gifted kids. At college level as far as I'm aware there isn't anything -the focus is on academia not sports.
Players come up through provincial teams and I guess universities have nothing to do with selection.
Just a quick check of the scholarships page for NZ unis shows no sporting scholarships other than for support staff ie: coaches and physios'and most are no more than $5000.00 total. There aren't any free rides unless you have extreme hardship and even then I don't think so
Just following up on this - the All Blacks who are our top rated players are paid in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per season, excluding a couple of long term top players who have negotiated 1.5 m or so. Some are able to supplement this well with sponsorship deals.
Compare this with Steven Adams who on his first year with a US basketball team earned $2m + you can see why there are no free rides over here.
We simply don't have the population to support astronomical sporting salaries and if I'm being honest we probably as a culture wouldn't support it either, a tall poppy is a tall poppy in NZ be it sporting or academic, in fact despite the distinct lack of glory I believe most kiwis would be happier for an intellectually employed person (engineer etc) was earning the higher amount, just my perception.
