POLICY & REFORM campusreview. com. au
Inside Labor’ s plan
The party’ s policy features more spending per student, along with a focus on making sure the public gets a good return on that investment.
Kim Carr interviewed by James Wells
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Labor government would increase the number of students completing their university studies by 20,000 each year from 2018 as part of the party’ s new higher education policy, education spokesman Kim Carr has announced.
Carr announced the long-awaited policy in September. He says it addresses worrying non-completion rates, as well as upgrading funding levels per student.
Labor’ s plan, he says, would also more than halve the cost of some of the most expensive university degrees, while sourcing funding through reforms to taxes and superannuation. Under Labor, he said, medical, dentistry and veterinary degrees would cost just $ 52,000, compared with upwards of $ 125,000 under the Coalition.
The policy announcement also indicates that Labor will pursue plans to write off the HECS debts of 100,000 students who complete a STEM degree at university.
Peak bodies who welcomed the plan included Regional Universities Network( RUN) and Universities Australia.
Carr says that under a Labor government, average spending per student would increase from $ 9300 to $ 11,800 from 2018 and that this would continue to increase until 2026.
Here, Carr speaks with Campus Review about further details of the plan and the need to better support students in completing their degrees.
CR: Kim, can you begin by outlining the key points of the new policy?
KC: Labor will be providing a student funding guarantee, which will secure predictable and dependable legislative-based funding, so that each student in Australia will know they’ re going to have the money necessary, and the universities will know that they’ ve got the money necessary, to provide a quality education for our people.
The assumption that we weren’ t going to have in this country the political will to increase investment has been demonstrated to be incorrect. Under Labor, from 2018, we will provide $ 11,800, on average, per student, which will compare to the government’ s policy of $ 9,300 per student. It will be a 27 percent difference in 2018 that goes to 30 per cent and again to 45 per cent over 2026.
We will also ensure that there is an approach to the universities to lift the quality, the standards and retention of students so we know that in return for the higher education investment the public will have confidence that we are getting a better university system that is more responsive to economic and social pressures and is able to prepare students more effectively for the challenges they face when they join the workforce.
We will also provide arrangements [ for ] an independent, arms-length higher education commission, which will look to providing independent advice to government and work with the universities to ensure that we’ re able to improve the quality of our higher education.
Will there be tighter rules for the ways universities can spend taxpayer funds and could you outline these as well? We want to see that the universities, in return for the increased Commonwealth investment, don’ t expect a blank check. We believe there [ must ] be higher levels of performance and accountability for the increased investment that the Parliament will have to legislate and provide to universities.
We believe the universities can be more responsive to local communities, to national priorities; that they can ensure greater attention on the success of students, not just the enrolment of students.
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