Thanks to the Job Ready Graduates scheme, an arts degree today will cost over $50,000. How have five decades of government policy taken us from free education to this?
Articles on HECS debt
Displaying all articles
Higher education services – like healthcare, food and roads – do not magically drop out of the sky. It costs money to run university campuses, infrastructure and pay for teaching and research.
Australians with student debt would undoubtedly benefit from the proposed changes. But they come with a hefty price tag and some disadvantages.
The federal government has announced plans to change the way debts are indexed. But it may not help students over the long term.
Taxpayers, including those paying tuition fees with FEE-HELP loans, can claim a deduction for self-education expenses that relate to the work they do. But graduates with a HECS-HELP debt can’t claim.
Though more moderate than the 2014 version, the new higher education reform package represents groundhog day for the major political parties.
We shouldn’t take the government’s own budgetary savings rationale at face value.
A heavy focus of Bill Shorten’s budget reply speech was preparing for the future with science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. While this focus is a step in the right direction, the policies probably aren’t the right way to go about it.
Top contributors
-
Professor of Higher Education Policy, Monash University
-
Associate Professor in Language, Literacy and TESL, University of Canberra
-
Senior Lecturer in Political Economy, University of Sydney
-
Honorary associate professor of economy and society, Macquarie University
-
Senior Research Fellow, Curtin University
-
Law Professor, University of New England
-
Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra
-
Emeritus Professor, College of Business and Economics, Australian National University
-
Adjunct Professor, Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education, OISE, University of Toronto
-
Vice chancellor, Western Sydney University