Canberra 'hell-bent On Americanising Education'

The Age

Wednesday May 31, 2006

JEWEL TOPSFIELD, CANBERRA

FULL-FEE-PAYING Australian university students will be racking up debts of at least half a billion dollars a year by 2008, prompting claims from Labor that the Government was "hell-bent on Americanising Australian education".

Figures provided to Labor by Education Minister Julie Bishop show the estimated debt from Fee-Help - a loan to full-fee paying domestic students - incurred in 2008-2009 is $503 million. The figure is set to jump to $537 million a year in 2009-2010.

The Opposition claimed student debt would soar even higher following the 2006 budget announcement that the Fee-Help cap would be increased from $50,000 to $80,000 for most degrees and up to $100,000 for medicine, dentistry and veterinary science. Like HECS, Fee-Help is repaid through the tax system when a student reaches a certain income level.

"The increase in Fee-Help means Australian students who do a full-fee degree will have a debt up to $100,000 before they even get a chance to buy a house," Opposition education spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said.

Under the Howard Government there were already more than 60 degrees costing more than $100,000, she said.

In 1999, Prime Minister John Howard told Parliament the Government would not be introducing an American-style higher education system.

"There will be be no $100,000 university fees under this Government," he said at the time. "That is a figment of the Labor Party's propaganda machine."

Mr Howard later said he was referring to HECS-funded places and not "the very, very small number of cases where people pay full fees".

But Ms Macklin said Mr Howard had misled Australians when he told Federal Parliament in 1999 that there would be no $100,000 degrees under his Government. "The massive increases in student debt show the Howard Government is hell-bent on Americanising Australian education," she said.

Ms Bishop accused Labor of continuing its ideological attack on full-fee-paying students, who were seeking to undertake a course of their choice rather than be forced to take a second choice. "Labor would deny this choice to the 3 per cent of domestic undergraduates who take this option, purely because of their politics of envy and class warfare," she said.

Ms Bishop said 97 per cent of undergraduates were in Commonwealth-supported places. "Full-fee-paying courses are in addition to Commonwealth-supported places. Funding has been provided for more than 39,000 new Commonwealth-supported places from 2005-2009."

© 2006 The Age

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