Debt To Soar For Full-fee Students

The Age

Wednesday May 31, 2006

By JEWEL TOPSFIELD, CANBERRA and ADAM MORTON

FULL-FEE-PAYING Australian university students will be racking up debts totalling at least half a billion dollars a year by 2008, prompting claims from Labor that the Federal Government is "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, 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 increase from $50,000 to $80,000 for most degrees and up to $100,000 for medicine, dentistry and veterinary science. 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 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 that the Government would not be introducing an American-style higher education system.

"There will be no $100,000 university fees under this Government," he said at the time. Mr Howard later said he was referring to HECS-funded places, not "the very, very small number of cases where people pay full fees".

But Ms Macklin said Mr Howard had misled Australians.

Meanwhile, vice-chancellors have warned that a univeristy education will cost more if the Federal Government enforces a plan to force lecturers to check attendance of overseas students.

Proposed changes include increased monitoring at universities, TAFEs and colleges to ensure overseas students meet visa regulations, and widened responsibility for the welfare of students aged under 18.

A contractor for the vice-chancellors' body found the changes would cost universities up to $42 million.

Australian Vice-Chancellors Committee chief executive John Mullarvey said: "It considerably increases the red tape and regulation and therefore the cost of providing education to overseas students. There is no option other than to pass the cost on."

© 2006 The Age

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