Long overdue HECS reform on the horizon at last

CAPA applauds the third recommendation of the Senate Committee report, Universities in Crisis, that there be a review conducted of the onerous differential HECS regime, and of the cripplingly low HECS repayment threshold.

"The Senate committee's recognition of the Dickensian inadequacy of the current incarnation of HECS is a welcome contrast to the government's mean and hard hearted denial of genuine student hardship," said CAPA President John Byron today.

"Differential HECS and an absurdly low HECS repayment threshold act as significant disincentives for many people to enter higher education," he observed.

"They also render postgraduate study much more difficult to undertake."

Differential HECS charges students in some disciplines more than others, depending on factors including possible future earnings and market demand, as well as cost of provision. Law students, for instance, pay higher HECS than others despite being quite cheap to teach.

"The assumption that all law graduates are going to make a killing is absurd, and yet this government's policy is based on this simplistic normative model of the law student's career path," said Mr Byron.

"And there are serious impacts on enrolment patterns, including an alarming decline in Science enrolments due to an unreasonable HECS basis that bears no relation to future earnings."

The current HECS repayment threshold is $23,242, which is just 58.6% of the average wage. And yet personal financial benefit is the whole rationale for the HECS co-payment system in the first place.

"The injustice of the requirement to pay HECS - on the basis of private benefit - at a level well below that which constitutes the realisation of that private benefit is staggering," said Mr Byron.

"It also constitutes a considerable impediment to undertaking further study, particularly when it coexists with the other financial impediments of early adulthood," he argued.

There has already been a significant response to the report's acknowledgment of widespread hardship.

"I have been taken aback by the number of expressions of profound relief by students and recent graduates in the wake of parliamentary recognition of the tremendous financial hardship imposed by the Howard government," Mr Byron commented.

"Review is only the first step, but swift and substantial reforms will make a very real difference to the lives of many struggling students and young workers.

"This needs to be done not only in the interest of justice and good economic management, but also to benefit the broader university system that is negatively impacted by the disincentives inherent in the current arrangements," he concluded.