policy & reform
Unis put fee hikes on hold
Several institutions are holding off on raising their price tags ahead of deregulation. By Dallas Bastian
Multiple Australian universities are freezing fees to create certainty around cost for students who will be enrolling in courses this year.
Flinders University, Griffith University and Victoria University are amongst those that have declared there will be no fee increases for students enrolling in courses through 2014 mid-year entry.
Professor Michael Barber, vice-chancellor at Flinders, says,“ The university feels it is important that students enrolling in 2014 can make their decisions with certainty and not have any unexpected increases in the level of their fees.”
Vice-chancellor of Griffith University, professor Ian O’ Connor, was in agreement, saying that Griffith doesn’ t want students enrolling in July this year to encounter an unexpected fee increase come 2016, when the proposed system would go into effect.
Flinders and Griffith are also asserting that students commencing study in 2015 will have relevant information about future fees as soon as possible.
O’ Connor called upon the government to reinstate pre-Budget funding arrangements for students enrolling this year.
Professor Jan Thomas, vice-chancellor of the University of Southern Queensland, says the Budget would cause future students to pay more and would create apprehension.
“ As anticipated, the student contribution will rise,” she wrote in a letter sent to staff.“ The government has decided to reduce its contribution by, on average, 20 per cent. The net effect is that the income to the university, which has been shared between students and the Commonwealth, could remain the same only if newly enrolling students pay more.
“ Current and future students will undoubtedly be concerned about the government’ s intended university fee deregulation and how that might translate into higher charges.”
Students across Australia who enrol now will have 18 months of the old system before moving to the new in 2016.“ Those who were enrolled before the Budget announcements will be grandfathered under the old system until 2020,” Thomas says. One particular cohort that could be heavily affected by a deregulated system is mature aged students, she added.
“ The mature-age market, including people studying part time while employed – which represents a significant proportion of the student body at USQ – may be particularly sensitive to increases in student contribution / fees, in the context of changes to health, welfare and taxes,” she explained.“ Their ongoing participation in higher education will need to be carefully monitored after the student contribution increase to determine any adverse effect.”
Shadow minister for higher education, Kim Carr, says there is little wonder that there is“ near-universal opposition from students and across the university sector”.
He says almost every vice-chancellor in Australia has expressed concerns.“ Even those initially in favour of the changes are now having second thoughts,” he adds.
Labor will not support a deregulated system.“ If caps are lifted on fees, there is a very real prospect of fees skyrocketing – up to $ 120,000 and $ 200,000, as some have predicted – and of young people being saddled with heavy debt burdens with compound interest,” Carr says.“ Graduates, and those who fail to graduate, will be forced to pay more, sooner; some could face decades of debt.” He says rural and regional students and those from low- and middle-income families would be affected the most.
“ We need a well-educated workforce for the jobs of the future,” Carr says.“ You don’ t get that by keeping people ignorant; you don’ t get that by locking out low- and middle-income students from a decent education.”
Carr says John Dawkins, as education minister, introduced the unified national system after lengthy consultations and a Green and White Paper process, adding that education minister Christopher Pyne’ s actions had been reckless.
On top of this, Carr says,“ The HECS system is a fair system that gets the balance between public and private benefit right; that is, the government pays the bulk of education expenses because of the public good involved and the individual pays a minority because there is a private benefit.”
Carr says this model is internationally recognised and should not be abandoned in favour of a“ retrograde, inequitable and ill-considered alternative”. ■
10 | campusreview. com. au