Is it possible to pay to get in, and if so how many people really do this?
Even when full-fee places where offered I'm preety sure everyone ends up paying the same amount. Except full-fee people pay it each year and CSP people pay it back once they start earning a certain amount.
A bit off topic but I'm so glad Rudd abolished Full-Fee. In my eyes it's not fair that two people with the same ENTER can be treated differently just because one can afford it and one can't. But then again I'm biased because I would not have taken a full-fee place if they were offered.
1) nope, if you pay full fee your fees are a LOT higher. Where a normal CSP student would pay 6k of student contribution a year (more or less, depending on the course), a full-fee student can pay up to 10.5 k per semester (21 k per year)
2) This argument for equality and "level playing field" is in some ways destructive. You have basically taken away quite a bit of funding from universities, which decreases the quality of uni education, uni life and even access/equity scholarships
if you are to argue that Rudd is putting in extra funding into universities to make up this loss in revenue, you might also want to ask "where does that money come from?"
at the expense of other tax-funded systems... (or our tax rates go up.. haha)
an old discussion on abolishing full fee places (i'm surprised it hasn't restarted yet, given the news...)
http://vcenotes.com/forum/index.php/topic,3147.0.html