Coalition considers fee deregulation

[Orb]

It's things like this which makes me lose hope in the entire political system of Australia.

[vox nihili]

UniMelb students got this today...

Students and Colleagues,

You may have noticed an emerging debate about higher education policy in the wake of a recent report to government by David Kemp and Andrew Norton.

While the Kemp-Norton report focuses on the demand driven system, which it supports, the document has triggered a wider argument about who pays for higher education.

The University of Melbourne Student Union has joined the debate, circulating a petition calling on the University to oppose fee increases and deregulation.

It is important student voices are heard. We are very fortunate in Australia that income contingent loans ensure no student need pay in advance for their university education. Yet many students endure considerable poverty during their years of study. Improved financial support for students in need is a pressing issue for anyone concerned about equitable outcomes. Creating more student scholarships to assist with living costs is an important objective for the University of Melbourne.

However, it seems likely public debate will focus on the cost of courses rather than financial aid for the disadvantaged. No one ever welcomes a price rise, and student opposition to more flexible fees is understandable, indeed inevitable.

For the University, the choice is more difficult. Students are the raison d'etre for a university, and also the major source of funding for its activities. After nearly 40 years of falling federal support per tertiary student, Melbourne's ability to offer a high quality education is dependent on the fees paid by local and international students.

Following recent budget cuts, the University of Melbourne faces a $160 million shortfall over the next four years. If there are further funding reductions in the May budget - as many expect - even more difficult challenges emerge to keep class sizes reasonable, to hire the best academic and professional staff, to support laboratories and libraries, and to ensure accessible and high quality services for students when studying, enjoying campus life or needing personal care.

In the discussion to follow, these issues need careful consideration. Students are strongly represented at Melbourne through undergraduate and postgraduate Council Fellows, each bringing a student perspective to deliberations by the governing body of the University. It was a pleasure to discuss these issues today with the Council Fellows, alongside the elected leadership of the University of Melbourne Student Union and the Graduate Student Association. It was a constructive meeting, and I look forward to further discussions with student representatives.

In our meeting this morning, I expressed a view it is not in students' interests to reduce the quality of their education to avoid unpopular fee rises. This is a choice no one welcomes, but a question we cannot avoid.

Melbourne is a public-spirited university committed to excellence in research, teaching and learning, and engagement. In the best of all possible worlds, that mission would be proudly and unstintingly supported by the nation.

Our reality, alas, makes for harder choices.

University and student leaders share a belief in the power of higher education to empower lives. We may not immediately agree, though, on options to address the long, slow decline in public funding per student for higher education in this country. Student organisations, appropriately, are concerned about costs for their members. In pressing for deregulation, the University seeks a more transparent and equitable system in which fees are linked to the course a student chooses to study.

In the debate to follow, we will all need to keep in mind the multiple interests at stake - those of current students of course, alongside the prospects for the next generation.

Finding a balance amid austere public spending on higher education will not be easy. We must maintain the quality and value of Melbourne degrees alongside the welfare of our students and the contribution of colleagues. These are not easy decisions, but they will demand everyone's attention in the weeks and months ahead.

A more detailed discussion of the fees question can be found from today at VC Open Line - http://vcblog.unimelb.edu.au/2014/04/28/change-in-higher-education/.

Glyn Davis

[slothpomba]

I disagree with these changes but this is a harsh generalisation.

I don't think it is, its characteristic of the right wing and the liberal party to want to shrink the governments involvement in many spheres of life. Indeed, their entire mantra has been "slash" "cut" "razor gang" "budget emergency". It's also characteristic of the neo-liberal economics infesting every right wing (and indeed many of the so called "left-wing") parties globally.

Could the Federal Government (in its bid to try cut spending) at least keep fees regulated whilst decreasing the government contribution, if cutting spending is their supposed reason for doing this?

A lot of this is the pushing of universities (whether rightly or wrongly) for more money rather than the government necessarily complaining about the level of spending (although they do that too).

One relatively painless way to bring in more revenue is to cost courses more based on the projected income of their graduates, especially for professional degrees where most people go on to a specified job. It already happens to a degree, some students, say agriculture or science need to only pay for about 25-50% of their degree, law is about 80% i think. We can either increase the percentages or simply increase the gross fee of these courses so the specified % brings in a large amount.

For the amount of cash doctors or lawyers bring in, you'd think they can (on the aggregate) afford to pay off a larger HECs loan later on. That said, i'm in favour of no changes, even ones like these. If we needed a relatively painless and fair one, something like this would be best.

I don't support any political party; in my opinion Labor and Liberal are just as bad as each other, (the Greens are even worse).
Anyway, the way I read slothpomba's post, I felt he was implying that the agenda of Conservatives is to entrench social disadvantage, which I feel is overly harsh. Maybe the Liberals are not as keen on welfare etc., but I don't think they actively try to screw over poor people.

Still no examples or evidence here like he asked for. I might have the opinion the greens are the best and totally reverse your situation, i can claim that as my opinion and some respect is warranted but if theres no facts or elaboration we don't have to listen :p. Conservative parties by their very nature are anti-progress (don't believe me? pick up a political science book or even check wikipedia). They want to conserve the current order, the current social hierarchy, the current class relationships. They might not be attempting to actively entrench social disadvantage but its not like they put much effort into trying to make it go away either (see Howard with his massive tax cuts for the rich for example).  Their recent paid parental leave scheme also shows they think rich women are worth more money than poor women. There are many ripe examples.

Make no mistake, the liberals aren't the party in your interests if you're not well off, especially the current administration with their razor gang to the pension, university budget, welfare, etc.

In MY opinion, many of the Green's policies are hopelessly idealistic and flawed. For example, they want to cut greenhouse gas emissions (and I do too), but they completely oppose nuclear power, despite nuclear power plants being extremely safe and also the fact that we have abundant uranium resources for creating this clean power. They also oppose construction of hydro-electric dams, another clean power source. They have many policies which will all cost a lot of money, and I'm not sure where they'll get the $$$ from.

You don't have to be dogmatic and toe the party line. There are some things that have internal disagreement within all parties, there are many inside the greens that disagree with their stance on nuclear power. Like all political parties, its partially a strategic reason to appeal to voters too, nothing unique or outrageous here. Keep in mind nuclear power plants take ages to build and bring on line, not to mention no one wants one close to them. We'll need all kinds of new agencies, regulators, infrastructures and hiring. There'll be security concerns, enviromental concerns, etc.

Nuclear too is just a stop gap, we will run out of useable nuclear material one day, it is not renewable, it is not the way of the future, it's a mere distraction. The sooner we bring true renewables like solar, wind and geothermal online the better.

Is it better than coal? Hell yeah. If i had a choice, id choose nuclear. Is it the smartest way and the way of the future? Nope. Is it renewable? Nope. Is it politically feasible or fast? Nope.

[Tasmania Jones]

I don't think it is, its characteristic of the right wing and the liberal party to want to shrink the governments involvement in many spheres of life. Indeed, their entire mantra has been "slash" "cut" "razor gang" "budget emergency". It's also characteristic of the neo-liberal economics infesting every right wing (and indeed many of the so called "left-wing") parties globally.


A lot of this is the pushing of universities (whether rightly or wrongly) for more money rather than the government necessarily complaining about the level of spending (although they do that too).

One relatively painless way to bring in more revenue is to cost courses more based on the projected income of their graduates, especially for professional degrees where most people go on to a specified job. It already happens to a degree, some students, say agriculture or science need to only pay for about 25-50% of their degree, law is about 80% i think. We can either increase the percentages or simply increase the gross fee of these courses so the specified % brings in a large amount.

For the amount of cash doctors or lawyers bring in, you'd think they can (on the aggregate) afford to pay off a larger HECs loan later on. That said, i'm in favour of no changes, even ones like these. If we needed a relatively painless and fair one, something like this would be best.


Still no examples or evidence here like he asked for. I might have the opinion the greens are the best and totally reverse your situation, i can claim that as my opinion and some respect is warranted but if theres no facts or elaboration we don't have to listen :p. Conservative parties by their very nature are anti-progress (don't believe me? pick up a political science book or even check wikipedia). They want to conserve the current order, the current social hierarchy, the current class relationships. They might not be attempting to actively entrench social disadvantage but its not like they put much effort into trying to make it go away either (see Howard with his massive tax cuts for the rich for example).  Their recent paid parental leave scheme also shows they think rich women are worth more money than poor women. There are many ripe examples.

Make no mistake, the liberals aren't the party in your interests if you're not well off, especially the current administration with their razor gang to the pension, university budget, welfare, etc.


You don't have to be dogmatic and toe the party line. There are some things that have internal disagreement within all parties, there are many inside the greens that disagree with their stance on nuclear power. Like all political parties, its partially a strategic reason to appeal to voters too, nothing unique or outrageous here. Keep in mind nuclear power plants take ages to build and bring on line, not to mention no one wants one close to them. We'll need all kinds of new agencies, regulators, infrastructures and hiring. There'll be security concerns, enviromental concerns, etc.

Nuclear too is just a stop gap, we will run out of useable nuclear material one day, it is not renewable, it is not the way of the future, it's a mere distraction. The sooner we bring true renewables like solar, wind and geothermal online the better.

Is it better than coal? Hell yeah. If i had a choice, id choose nuclear. Is it the smartest way and the way of the future? Nope. Is it renewable? Nope. Is it politically feasible or fast? Nope.

Thanks for your thoughts slothpomba
I think I've said enough myself.

[Professor Polonsky]

Make unsubstantiated claims (in about a paragraph), have them rebutted, then flee because you've "said enough". Well played, I think you just wasted everyone's time.

[simpak]

One relatively painless way to bring in more revenue is to cost courses more based on the projected income of their graduates, especially for professional degrees where most people go on to a specified job. It already happens to a degree, some students, say agriculture or science need to only pay for about 25-50% of their degree, law is about 80% i think. We can either increase the percentages or simply increase the gross fee of these courses so the specified % brings in a large amount.

For the amount of cash doctors or lawyers bring in, you'd think they can (on the aggregate) afford to pay off a larger HECs loan later on. That said, i'm in favour of no changes, even ones like these. If we needed a relatively painless and fair one, something like this would be best.

Why not increase costs for courses that require more costly resources?  I don't know about other universities but Arts subjects cost the same as Science subjects for me...and Science subjects should definitely be more expensive to run.  Maybe any increase in fee should be proportional to the 'cost' of running the subject because I don't really see that happening for every course, esp at Melb.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong though!

Re: Polonomial's comment; I think you're taking the intentions of Tasmania Jones in the wrong way.  Just because they chose not to comment on what KP said doesn't mean they're 'fleeing', I think that their response was extremely civil and that they just didn't have much to say in response.  I think that's fine and there's no reason to be rude to them?

[slothpomba]

Why not increase costs for courses that require more costly resources?  I don't know about other universities but Arts subjects cost the same as Science subjects for me...and Science subjects should definitely be more expensive to run.  Maybe any increase in fee should be proportional to the 'cost' of running the subject because I don't really see that happening for every course, esp at Melb.  Someone correct me if I'm wrong though!

Part of it is about equity and socioeconomic concerns. Law, according to the tables i've seen, isn't actually hugely expensive to teach. It's more the graduates, on average, will make significant more than arts graduates and the professional isn't necessarily in demand or a national priority, so, they can afford to pay more.

The gap between the most costly and least costly degrees isn't *massive* i reckon. I guess it depends how you figure capital costs (labs, etc) into that but i assume teaching salaries make up a significant portion of the ongoing cost anyway. This entire discussion is premised on the assumption students should pay more, which as i noted above, i really don't agree with. I think by in large, students pay enough. You have some degrees like law where students are paying something like 80-90% of their degree with a small government contribution.

I believe there are other ways to remedy the university situation without straddling students with even more debt (once again, largely from the generation who got it for free too). The mining and carbon taxes would have added extra revenue but they are being scrapped. There are possibly other creative ways of shifting the burden. One particular idea mooted was to add the $1000 start up scholarship from centrelink onto the HECs. I think this isn't a bad idea, almost no one entirely spends it on books, its not really essential for living to a degree (unlike fortnightly payments). I assume that would save a significant amount ($2000 x how ever many students is a lot).

Uni's sometimes seems very bloated, inefficient or dodgy too. I hear stories of departments spending money for the sake of it. That way, next year their budget wont be cut. If they spend under their current budget, theres the fear it'll be reduced because it looks like they don't need it. As i mentioned earlier, there are questionable cases of capital expenditure given their budgetary circumstances as well (expensive renovations when education assets are being slashed). At Monash, it appears the libraries purchase books from the Monash uni bookstore (believe it or not) adding an extra layer of unnecessary cost and complexity (to keep the bookstore going i guess). Better oversight or central control can probably help here to a degree as well. Executive salaries at Monash are well over a million dollars i believe (one of the best paid chancellors in the country).

Basically, TL;DR - There are ways of fixing this without charging the end student even more, it's not really necessary or even fair students should pay even more than they do.

[simpak]

I wasn't trying to say that they /should/ implement the change I was just saying it is a way to get more money more fairly - those that are more expensive pay more.

In my opinion (and you will disagree) they should go back to giving more government contribution based on where shortages occur and removing more of the government contribution where degrees are oversupplied.  This is my opinion not because I don't believe that people have a right to study what their passionate about, but because I believe the taxpayer doesn't have an obligation to extensively fund graduates (on a completely impersonal level here) that won't be contributing to filling a shortage.  So imo it should be cheaper to study degrees where there is a shortage but you should be expected to pay much more if you're doing something that's relatively unnecessary in the current/projected climate.

I don't understand how you think that shifting the 1000 dollar contribution to HECS is okay, but getting students to contribute more to their own study (when they will be able to shunt that contribution onto HECS anyway) is a bad idea.  To me, they are very similar ideas.  Shifting the 1000 dollar contribution won't help universities at all - the government will put that money back in their pocket.  Forcing a larger student contribution will actually give the university more to play with.  The universities have nothing to do with centrelink so I don't see how it would benefit them and their funding issues.  If anything is going to happen, imo, it shouldn't be to help the government reach surplus but simply to help the universities increase their funds and stop cutting the quality of education.

I don't think that the amount students are charged for a bachelor degree over three years is unreasonable at all.  Especially, for instance, my Hons year.  I'm paying like 8000 dollars to the uni this year and my supervisor will be fronting around 20 000 out of his grant money for me to do the work.  That's a pretty sweet deal, imo. I believe undergraduate fees could easily be increased by 500 dollars a semester per domestic student without much pain and heartache.

[Tasmania Jones]

Make unsubstantiated claims (in about a paragraph), have them rebutted, then flee because you've "said enough". Well played, I think you just wasted everyone's time.

I'm sorry I've wasted people's time  

[JellyDonut]

I'm sorry I've wasted people's time  

my problem is that i'm usually not wasting their time enough

[Hannibal]

I'm sorry I've wasted people's time  

Join the club .

[chasej]

I'm sorry I've wasted people's time  

You didn't. No one should be forced to debate if they don't want to. Polonomial was overly harsh in my opinion.

[brenden]

If you want to talk to someone directly without offering your opinion on be topic at hand, do so through the PM system please, guys.