Fee Rise Par For The Course

The Age

Monday May 24, 2004

David Rood

Students seem to have accepted the inevitability of rising costs, writes David Rood.

AS RMIT University's council gathered last week to deliberate over increasing HECS fees, there was one notable absence - student protests. Where a highly charged protest at Monash University months earlier forced a clandestine council meeting, RMIT students accepted the hike in fees with little protest.

The dust has almost settled on the Federal Government's higher education changes - dubbed the most significant in almost 20 years - with Ballarat the only Victorian university still to decide on HECS charges.

And the clear picture to emerge is that most students starting university next year will pay more for their education.

Most Victorian-based universities will increase HECS fees by 25 per cent across most courses next year. Deakin, La Trobe, Melbourne, Monash and RMIT have increased fees by the maximum - with some exceptions to regional, outer-suburban and other targeted courses. Swinburne and Victoria University of Technology will increase HECS fees by 15 per cent. There will be no change at the Australian Catholic University.

Leading Monash education academic Simon Marginson says cash-starved universities had no choice but to raise what funds they can by increasing fees. Professor Marginson says the HECS increase will force students to make safer choices and reduce movement between courses.

Under federal Education Minister Brendan Nelson's changes, universities can increase HECS charges by 25 per cent from next year. Nursing and education are exempt from any variation in fees.

Universities can also increase the quota of domestic undergraduate students paying full fees from 25 to 35 per cent.

Monash vice-chancellor Richard Larkins says the increased revenue will relieve some of the pressure from declining government funding in recent years and is designed to improve teaching and learning for students.

``Most universities, such as Monash, are trying to address issues around equity and access problems so we are able to provide more opportunities to more students with difficult financial circumstances to come to university," Professor Larkins says.

He says the fee rise will have little impact on students' choices as the HECS repayment threshold is being increased to $36,000.

A 25 per cent HECS increase means that from next year students will pay $4818 (an extra $962) for an arts or science degree, $6862 ($1372 more) for engineering, business and commerce degrees and $8033 ($1606 more) for law, medicine or dentistry.

For his part, Dr Nelson says he is pleased with the way Victorian universities have responded to the higher education changes, which will net them an additional $36 million next year. He singled out Swinburne and VUT, which have decided to charge a 15 per cent increase, and universities such as Deakin and Monash that, on some courses and campuses, will charge no HECS or freeze charges.

``Nearly 3000 students will go to university HECS-free next year as a result of the changes," Dr Nelson says.

He says he would have liked to have seen more price variation within universities rather than between them.

The president of the National Union of Students, Jodie Jansen, says: ``We are moving from strong public institutions to a US-style quasi user-pays system."

The universities will dedicate significant amounts of their extra revenue to access and equity scholarships. Victoria University announced a scholarship package to assist 500 students with living expenses such as accommodation and child care. Melbourne University has pledged that 20 per cent of students from 2005 will be supported by cost-of-living and academic scholarships.

But Ms Jansen says such scholarships are a token measure that will not dissuade students from less-privileged backgrounds from deciding that university is too expensive.

Professor Marginson argues that the biggest changes are the increased quota of domestic students paying full fees and a deferred-loan scheme for those students.

The shift will concentrate resources and attention on a small number of institutions at the top of the pecking order, he says.

David Rood is The Age's higher education reporter.

© 2004 The Age

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