HECS/HELP debts incurred before 2014 to suffer interest after 2020 - fair?

[Bennett.]

I'm going to burn through my help allotment then leave the country.

Problem solved

 

[greennick]

Oh spare me the deranged rant, that ignores everything from economic fundamentals, to best practice examples of how to engineer a competitive and effective higher education system.

The only counter you have provided is is disjointed nonsense about people supposedly taking the system for a ride, which couldn't be further from the reality. We don't need kids ending up with 100k fees, unable to service the interest, or under the threshold ending up being crippled by ballooning debts, or those who can pay, going off shore to better unis at lower cost. Likewise, even more who can't afford it avoiding education and post grad students or researches fleeing the country in droves.

I don't think we will end up with 100k in fees for all but the most extreme degrees at the best universities (ie, maybe Law at Melbourne). Post grad is already deregulated, yet we don't see those students fleeing in droves. The nature of supply and demand, means fees are kept relatively low. It won't end up as expensive as the US as there will be other options and some public funding, with largely publicly funded places at other unis meaning the sandstone unis can't take the piss.

 

[greennick]

What sort of addled brained thinking is this? If someone takes on a HECS debt for, say 40k, then pays back 40k plus the 2% - what is the problem?

The government isn't a bank relying on interest income to turn a profit on funding a student's education. Paying the cost of the education back plus change is sufficient.

This is a great point. Even in the US, government funded student loans aren't at 6% (private ones are a rip though).

 

[ClokesShankedIt]

$26B in current HECS and HELP debt (last record date 18 moths ago) is ridiculous to have on the governments balance sheet when it could be reallocated to the most needy in society

adding to that there is a failure rate of around 20% in repaying the debt meaning $6B will never be seen again

so who should wear that cost? ordinary workers who didn't go to uni, the disabled, the mentally ill, pensioners? may be those who were privileged enough to go to uni.

Hate to be the one to break the news to you, but HECS is a loan - so you aren't shocking and scandalising me by pointing out that it's on the balance sheet. Where else would it be?

What about the disabled, mentally ill, and pensioners? They are serviced using other portions of the governments tax take. Relevance? You might as well have asked me what I thought about Malcolm Fraser's personal driver.

 

[greennick]

Education equity counts. No it isn't an either or. We are not choosing between the two, as the current government is cutting both.

Education can easily be adequately funded and so can disability support and mental health services

What do you mean by education equity? How do we get education equity when some unis are clearly better than others when they have the same funding? How is it equity now when it costs the same to go to UWA and ECU? Why should a degree cost the same at every uni? Why shouldn't I pay more to go to UWA if it results in better teaching outcomes through smaller class sizes and more teachers from overseas??

 

[Power Raid]

Hate to be the one to break the news to you, but HECS is a loan - so you aren't shocking and scandalising me by pointing out that it's on the balance sheet. Where else would it be?

What about the disabled, mentally ill, and pensioners? They are serviced using other portions of the governments tax take. Relevance? You might as well have asked me what I thought about Malcolm Fraser's personal driver.

each of those groups have participants who pay tax. should they shoulder the burden of our most capable and privileged who chose to pull out of work to study?

further there is a thing called a budget and resources need to be allocated in priority. sure $ should be invested in university education but what is wrong with recouping the costs. Consider it a fair, direct and efficient form of tax.

 

[ClokesShankedIt]

each of those groups have participants who pay tax. should they shoulder the burden of our most capable and privileged who chose to pull out of work to study?

further there is a thing called a budget and resources need to be allocated in priority. sure $ should be invested in university education but what is wrong with recouping the costs. Consider it a fair, direct and efficient form of tax.

Both points are deliberately ignoring the fact that the great majority of HECS debt is repaid, plus change. I'm done with you.

 

[Power Raid]

Johhny, living in Cottelsoe, with his surgeon father and laywer mother, dips into daddy's wallet and shells out the 20-100k for his degree.

Old mate in kwinana with parents on 60k between them gets a nice loan at up to 6%.

Awesome

you will find the guys from kwinana will be more successful than his peers because they are hungrier, know the value of their education and know the value of a $.

Growing up in Parafield SA, I had to save for 12 years to start the degree of my choice. I did a degree before that by correspondence but I was 27 before I got the opportunity to study full time.

It really wasn't that bad and the late start meant I studied what I love.

 

[Smiling Buddha]

Why should education be free?

Should primary school be free? High school? Where do you draw the line and why?

university education is a privilege which has been subsidised by society including tradesman, disabled and even people with mental health and single mums. Why should they have to foot the bill?

What is this Liberal party talking points nonsense?

Are you paid to post here?

$26B in current HECS and HELP debt (last record date 18 moths ago) is ridiculous to have on the governments balance sheet when it could be reallocated to the most needy in society

You want to make CPI-indexed loans to the 'most needy in society'?

Seriously, are you paid to post here? What is the going rate?

 

[greennick]

Should primary school be free? High school? Where do you draw the line and why?

Everyone should attend primary and high school. Not everyone will attend university, this is the delineation I have. Why should my mates who drive forklifts pay for me to go to uni so I can now get paid 3 times what they do??

I enjoyed my time at uni, however unfortunately the best lecturers were only there on sabbatical as they happened to go to the uni decades before. It would be great if we could pick up some of this talent that has left to the US on a more long term basis. I think higher fees would allow some unis to go this route, while others will provide more basic degrees at a lower cost. This is the argument the sandstone unis are making.

 

[Smiling Buddha]

Everyone should attend primary and high school.

Why? And for the full thirteen years?

 

[Power Raid]

Should primary school be free? High school? Where do you draw the line and why?

What is this Liberal party talking points nonsense?

Are you paid to post here?

You want to make CPI-indexed loans to the 'most needy in society'?

Seriously, are you paid to post here? What is the going rate?

As I have joined Labor, I am quite happy to see the liberals do the heavy lifting on restructuring the relationships between states and the commonwealth, I am happy to see them reform the politically sensitive health and education and happy to see them get the debt under control.

My key goal is to reform labor from its association with unions and criminal organisations and the biggest legacy will focus on mental health.

 

[Smiling Buddha]

As I have joined Labor, I am quite happy to see the liberals do the heavy lifting on restructuring the relationships between states and the commonwealth, I am happy to see them reform the politically sensitive health and education and happy to see them get the debt under control.

So why aren't you chastising for them for blatantly failing to do this?

You realise that even on their own projections the Liberals have us going further into debt, right?

That budget deficits are here for at least a few more years?

 

[Power Raid]

So why aren't you chastising for them for blatantly failing to do this?

You realise that even on their own projections the Liberals have us going further into debt, right?

That budget deficits are here for at least a few more years?

your right

I would prefer we had a surplus this year and addressed some of the items highlighted by D&M

so yes, this budget was a failure to deal with the key issue

 

[greennick]

Why? And for the full thirteen years?

Everyone should complete high school where they can, there are important generic skills that you learn, even in the easier subject choices. Plus, it helps making the transition to work or further study at the same time as your peers.

However, understanding that this is not possible for everyone.

What is the point of this redirection?

 

[nylexbandit]

Isn't this just life? People with rich parents are more likely to get s**t from their parents.

Johhny, living in Cottelsoe, with his surgeon father and laywer mother, dips into daddy's wallet and shells out the 50k for his new car

Old mate in kwinana with parents on 60k between them gets a nice loan at up to 16% for a 5k bomb.

Why should education be free? If we accept that good unis need more money, how do we get that money to them? How do we create a tiered funding system, with unis with different capabilities for different students?? Why should that old mate in Kwinana have to pay taxes for Johnny to go to uni, while his son drops out of school in year 10 and works as a forklift driver??

The boy from Kwinana can still go to uni, he just ends up with a loan, which presumably will be paid back once he gets a job at the end of the degree. This is no different from now. If cost is a massive issue to him, then he can go to ECU or one of the other unis that will not be able to charge 50k+ for a degree.

Because in today's global economy, the only way Australia is going to remain competitive is by being a highly educated, high technology, innovative country. Increasing uni fees hits the lower income students more than the higher income. Leads to less variation in the people who obtain uni degrees, and from my experience, the less private school educated people obtaining uni degrees the better. There are a lot of high potential people who are already cut out of the system due to the natural drag on their high school results due to attending government schools. By increasing the cost of courses, many of these will also decide it's not worthwhile doing a course even if they get the score.

That being said, there does need to be a rethink about the targeting of HECS. Maybe some changes could be:

• No HELP support where a student changes from a full fee place to a HELP place
• Tiered funding where someone obtains a second degree after completing their first - i.e. career students cop an increased interest rate or are required to pay a portion upfront
• Increased responsibility on Unis to show that they are providing degrees that lead to a reasonable prospect of employment - i.e. query whether producing 10s of thousands of new law grads a year is really going to lead to the best outcomes for students, the economy and society.

 

[Taylor]

Does a degree usually correlate to high tax take from a person?

There would be a peak percentage of population before the degree value begins to drop, such as it would if everyone had one, but if everyone did then we could focus Australians on developing new technogy while the already cheaper foreign workforce provide production and support.

We already lost the race, so we should change the track.

 

[greennick]

Because in today's global economy, the only way Australia is going to remain competitive is by being a highly educated, high technology, innovative country. Increasing uni fees hits the lower income students more than the higher income. Leads to less variation in the people who obtain uni degrees, and from my experience, the less private school educated people obtaining uni degrees the better. There are a lot of high potential people who are already cut out of the system due to the natural drag on their high school results due to attending government schools. By increasing the cost of courses, many of these will also decide it's not worthwhile doing a course even if they get the score.

That being said, there does need to be a rethink about the targeting of HECS. Maybe some changes could be:

• No HELP support where a student changes from a full fee place to a HELP place
• Tiered funding where someone obtains a second degree after completing their first - i.e. career students cop an increased interest rate or are required to pay a portion upfront
• Increased responsibility on Unis to show that they are providing degrees that lead to a reasonable prospect of employment - i.e. query whether producing 10s of thousands of new law grads a year is really going to lead to the best outcomes for students, the economy and society.

I agree with all of the above. We need to have great unis that compete on the international stage. However does every uni need to be world class? With the current system, we can't put more money in to the good unis without also throwing it after the average ones. Our dollars would be better targeted by putting more investment in our better unis, given this it makes sense for students to pay for this as they are the ones who will directly benefit from it.

Will this result in less poor kids going to the top unis? No doubt it will to some. Just as HECS does now to uni in general. However, not every uni will aim to be a top uni, some will got for value, so there will still be plenty of good options at prices similar to now. I wonder if many people will not go to uni altogether because they decide they don't want to pay for one of the top ones?

Re the law grads. The ability to read law and argue a point of view is useful in almost any office job. There are very few unemployed law graduates, just few are actually employed as lawyers. So, I would like to see how you could ever argue the amount of people studying law should be curtailed based on this, compared to almost any degree offered by the arts faculty.

 

[Taylor]

A lot of engineering graduates I know use their degrees as more of a proof of a brain than engineering credentials.

 

[greennick]

A lot of engineering graduates I know use their degrees as more of a proof of a brain than engineering credentials.

Yep, I started engineering, many of my classmates ended up in investment banks doing modelling or trading derivatives.

 

[Scotland]

A lot of engineering graduates I know use their degrees as more of a proof of a brain than engineering credentials.

I'd say 'proof' is stretching it in a few cases from what I've seen.

 

[Taylor]

I'd say 'proof' is stretching it in a few cases from what I've seen.

The smartest managers pay a lot of attention to those who know one thing expertly. It helps when juggling the dozens of jostling trades.

 

[WA ROO]

My key goal is to reform labor from its association with unions and criminal organisations and the biggest legacy will focus on mental health.

The backroom brawlers will let you and your friends tinker around the edges.Make it look like things have changed.
Then when/if ALP gains power you will be gone.

 

[Patrick Bullet]

Everyone should attend primary and high school. Not everyone will attend university, this is the delineation I have. Why should my mates who drive forklifts pay for me to go to uni so I can now get paid 3 times what they do??

That's just it though - They aren't the ones paying for you to go. You pay for it later when you are paying higher taxes on that triple salary you're talking about.

It's also worth mentioning here the opportunity cost of spending three to six years at uni earning nothing while your forklift friend is earning a full salary.

 

[Patrick Bullet]

Anyway, if we want to get serious about not wasting govt money in higher education then we should be prioritising money towards fields in which the country actually needs graduates and away from those which it does not.

I do have some sympathy for this argument but it's not always easy to predict what types of grads we need four to six years in advance. Probably easier to predict demand for teachers, nurses, doctors etc. based on demographics but harder to predict lagged demand for scientists, engineers, IT workers, lawyers etc.