By Marcia Devlin

When they were in opposition, the now Australian government promised they would make no cuts to education if elected. But that was before the election, you see. Now they have been elected, they are proposing a twenty percent cut to base funding for universities.  It’s after the election now and things are very, very different. The main difference I can see is that opposition are now the government.

While in ‘proposal’ form at the time of writing, this cut will almost certainly go ahead. The government have also proposed a significant increase in the interest rate for the loans Australian students take out to pay their contribution to their study costs through the Higher Education Contribution Scheme.  This increase and related changes will deter some students from studying at all; will create lifelong and crippling debt for many graduates; and will have a particularly adverse effect on women graduates who take time out to have and raise children while their study loan debt compounds. There is almost universal opposition to this component of the government’s suit of proposals so its trajectory is less certain.

The government have also proposed the deregulation of fees for study. Fee deregulation has gone so smoothly in the UK, you see, and resulted in such an improvement in fairness, equity, quality and all-round happiness for everyone that they simply could not let the opportunity to do this in Australia pass. Oh, wait … maybe that’s not why we’re doing it. I can’t remember … Continue reading →