‘Scaring off poor students': HECS relief welcome, but high fees have become a barrier

The Age

31-07-2025

While Shorten said he respected every tertiary institution's contribution, he said the University of Canberra, Western Sydney University and Edith Cowan were key in the government's goal to get more students from poor backgrounds into universities.
'We're doing the unglamorous heavy lifting of higher education, which is getting people into higher ed who might not have always attended higher ed.
Loading
'If I can be really direct, Gen Zs and Millennials and people thinking about coming to uni, they don't want to be going to some sort of educational sausage factory where they're just churned, where they just seem to be interested in the dollars generated from international students to build more prestigious glass buildings. So that's part of it. That's how you get people in.'
When it came to reducing fees, other former Labor politicians including Peter Garrett, Barry Jones and Gareth Evans publicly rebuked the government last week, over its failure to fix the $50,000 cost of humanities degrees, in an open letter to the Executive Committee of the Australian Historical Association.
It noted that prestigious research-intensive universities had maintained strong course enrolments while other institutions were suffering.
'Enrolments for many humanities and social science units at other universities – those often favoured by Indigenous, regional and female students – are falling,' the letter said.
At Western Sydney University, the number of commencing students from low socioeconomic backgrounds fell by 1000 students in the year after the Job-ready Graduates program was introduced.
WSU vice chancellor George Williams said the steep price tag had scared off poor students who feared they would never pay off the high debt.
'It does work as a price signal to price people out of university … It's unfair, and it really restricts social mobility,' he said.
Williams noted that the government had spent $20 billion on debt relief, but said that failing to reform fees was 'setting ourselves up just to have to do debt relief again down the track'.
University of NSW student Norman Huang, a final-year student in commerce and computer science, welcomed the 20 per cent cut to student loans.
'For most students, it is a relief both mentally and financially,' he said. 'A lot of students are starting to think more long-term with their careers and personal goals.'
Sydney University deputy vice chancellor (education) Professor Joanne Wright said unwinding the Job-ready Graduates program 'can't happen quickly enough'.
'We're looking forward to working with the incoming Australian Tertiary Education Commission and helping to address these complex issues,' she said.
A Macquarie University spokesman said it supported a review of higher education funding arrangements to ensure more 'Australian students can access university, offers equitable support across all disciplines, and does not unfairly penalise students for the choices they make'.