Clamp-down coming for up-front university fees by stealth

CAPA applauds the seventh recommendation of the Senate Committee report, Universities in Crisis, that the escalating reliance upon hidden fees and charges to university students needs urgent review.

"The inappropriate and perhaps even illegal charging of ancillary fees has been an escalating problem at most institutions for several years," said CAPA President John Byron today.

"Yet it has been very difficult to find anyone in a position of power that cares about this very real impediment to students' successful participation in higher education.

"The Senate Committee's concern about ancillary fees for university students is a clear indication that the Opposition and the Democrats are listening to students and staff when they talk about problems within the sector," he said.

Ancillary fees include hidden costs for materials required to participate in courses, such as Internet access, course reading material, laboratory safety equipment, art materials, and the like.

Under the Higher Education Funding Act, universities are prohibited from charging students for essential educational materials, as a condition of government's funding for student places.

"This Government's own regulations expressly proscribe ancillary fees," observed Mr Byron, "and yet it has done nothing to enforce those regulations despite numerous complaints of infringements.

"Perhaps this is because the ultimate cause of universities' increasing reliance upon indirect fees and charges is the crippling erosion of basic operating grants of to universities," he continued.

"Institutions have found it a great deal harder to conform to the Government's regulatory requirements while that same Government bleeds universities white by withholding essential funding.

"As usual, it is students who end up collecting the tab."

Ancillary fees are widely condemned as fundamentally antagonistic to pedagogical objectives of student progress, as they make full educational support contingent upon wealth.

"Until students are funded properly to participate in higher education, and until universities are properly funded to provide adequate support for students, governments cannot lay claim to any credibility as proficient managers of Australian public education," said Mr Byron.

"This litmus test applies to anybody who would govern," he noted. "But the Howard Government's performance is a matter of record, and it's been a very poor showing.

"The Senate Committee's concern about the difficulties confronting students indicates that a Beazley Government, with Democrats support, would be concerned to significantly improve the conditions within our universities, and revive our ailing higher education sector," he concluded.