Bishop Backs Full Fees Despite Unfilled Places

The Age

Monday October 2, 2006

ADAM MORTON

Federal Education Minister Julie Bishop is backing full-fee degrees for Australian students as demand for university places declines, saying they make the system more equitable.

Ms Bishop said as full-fee places were available for overseas students, they should be offered to the small number of Australian undergraduates - more than 16,000 in 2004 - prepared to pay to ensure a place in their first-preference course.

The minister was responding to a call from Swinburne University vice-chancellor Ian Young for full-fee places to be scrapped.

Speaking at a higher-education conference in Melbourne, Professor Young said the falling demand for government-subsidised places would worsen, as universities were sitting on a "demographic timebomb" - a drop in the number of school-leavers over the coming decade.

He said it was "slightly illogical" that Australian students in some courses were paying full fees while some universities could not attract students to fill HECS places.

At least six universities - including the high-ranked Australian National University in Canberra and Victoria's University of Ballarat - failed to attract enough students this year and will negotiate a restructure with the Federal Government in a bid to keep excess funding.

Full-fee places are offered in addition to HECS places for students who narrowly miss entry. An increasing number of full-fee degrees cost more than $100,000; HECS degrees cost between $3998 and $8333 a year.

HECS are drawn from wages once the former student is earning more than $38,149 a year, and upfront fees can be paid through a loan scheme capped at $80,000 for most courses.

Under Professor Young's proposal - which is designed to provoke debate - full-fee places would be abolished and the university sector would be opened to the free market. Students would be funded through a voucher system and universities could decide how many they enrolled and what HECS they charged.

Professor Young said regional universities would need concessions to compete and conceded his proposal was likely to lead to amalgamations or rationalisation. He said competition was likely to keep fees down. His call for an end to full fees for Australians follows Labor's pledge to scrap them if elected next year.

Ms Bishop said she supported increased deregulation of the system but said full fees would stay. They were not being paid in courses that were struggling to attract students, she said.

"The full-fee places are generally in the areas of extremely high demand in extremely popular universities - like law at the University of Melbourne."

RMIT University vice-chancellor Margaret Gardner said a small shortfall of students in some courses was not grounds to abolish full fees.

She said Australians were free to pay full fees at overseas campuses and should be here as long as foreign students were. "What we're seeing at the moment is that there perhaps are enough HECS places . . . (so) students are able to choose to go to university without paying full fees," she said. "But if they so choose, as with international students, that should be available to them."

Opposition education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said a Labor government would partially deregulate the system by allowing universities to decide where to direct places, but not allow fees to rise.

-- ADAM MORTON

Adam Morton is The Age's higher education reporter.

© 2006 The Age

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