It's Time To Introduce A New Loan System For Students

The Age

Thursday March 25, 2004

Re your article, ``Poverty-stricken students reliant on food handouts" (The Age, 22/3). An overhaul of income assistance for university students is needed, but not the kind that most lobbyists recommend.

For years we have heard about student poverty, including girls working in the adult industry and people skipping classes so they can take on paid jobs.

We are told this is because the level of taxpayer-funded student income support (Austudy) is set at too low a level. This may be true, but the usual suggestion - that the Federal Government should increase this income support - is not the best public policy ``solution".

Only about 30 per cent of school leavers go on to university. It is not appropriate to ask people who do not have a tertiary education to pay even higher taxes to finance the lifestyles of our academic elite.

Instead, the Government should abandon tertiary student welfare (Austudy) and introduce HECS-style living loans for all students. There should be no bureaucratic parental means tests. However, students would be required to repay these income support payments in full when they are working.

This proposal would enable the Government to increase assistance levels, and our young adult students would be in charge of their financial position. Students who want to dedicate themselves to full-time study, without doing any paid work, could afford to do so. Those who wish to minimise their future debt might choose a lower HECS-style living loan, offset by part-time work.

This system would be fairer for all Australians.

Simon Price, Belmont

© 2004 The Age

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