Young Aussie with $50,000 HECS debt reveals degree she regrets: 'Not worth it'

Yahoo

9 hours ago

A young Aussie with more than $50,000 in HECS debt has shared why she regrets going to university as her debt continues to inch up. The government has promised to cut HECS and HELP debts by 20 per cent and while it's welcome relief for millions, many will still be left with significant amounts owing.
Pascal Zoghbi graduated with a Bachelor of Business majoring in enterprise and innovation marketing in 2023. The 22-year-old Perth woman told Yahoo Finance she was shocked after checking her HECS debt recently and finding it had ballooned to $50,801 following last month's indexation.
Zoghbi's HECS debt was around $48,000 after she graduated, and she was under the impression her debt was on its way down thanks to several years of compulsory work repayments.
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'Because I knew I was paying it off, I genuinely thought it would be at least under $50,000,' she said.
'The fact that I saw it back to $50,000, if not more, that was shocking. I was like, 'Are you serious?', literally everything that I have [paid] is just now back again.'
While Zoghbi said she was looking forward to the upcoming 20 per cent reduction to HECS debts, she still has $40,000 left to repay.'I'm still $40,000 in debt for a degree that is not worth being $40,000 in debt for. It used to be free, which baffles me,' she said.
'As a marketing degree, you cannot get enough money coming in in any job that's going to be able to financially set you up to pay your HECS debt.'
The skyrocketing cost of university degrees means it is also taking more time for students to pay off their degrees.
Analysis by the Australia Institute found the average time it takes a student to pay off their HECS-HELP debt has jumped from 7.3 years in 2006 to 9.9 years. This is based on debts that have already been repaid.
Zoghbi said she doesn't even want to think about how long it will take her to pay off her HECS debt.
'I don't want to know. I'd probably cry,' she said.
Zoghbi now wishes she didn't go to university and is worried about how it could impact her ability to get a home loan in the future.
'It's not worth the debt at all,' she said. 'I do not implement anything that I've learned at uni in my marketing job right now.'
Zoghbi said she knows many people working in marketing who don't have degrees and instead have experience.
'It's all about experience at the end of the day, it's not about your degree at all,' she said.
'If you get experience and you do a lot of networking, you could definitely get something in the field you want.'
Indeed research released earlier this year found that 67 per cent of job seekers and 55 per cent of employers thought on-the-job experience was more attractive than university degrees.
Indeed career expert Sally McKibbin said this highlighted a 'pivotal shift in the hiring landscape'.
'Employers are increasingly of the view that on-the-job experience has the potential to speak louder than a formal qualification,' she said.
'Higher education is of course still incredibly valuable and also valued, but Australia's job market is evolving and therefore so too is our approach to hiring.'
Zoghbi has called on universities to reassess their courses and make sure people actually get value out of them.
The government has promised to cut 20 per cent off all student loan debts, wiping around $16 billion in debt for around three million Australians.
This has not yet been legislated, but Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said it would be the 'first piece of legislation' introduced into the new parliament when it returned on July 22.
The reduction will be backdated to June 1, before indexation was applied this year. This year, debts rose by 3.2 per cent due to indexation.
Someone with the average HECS debt of $27,600 would see around $5,520 cut from their outstanding loan.
The government also planned to reduce the amount Australians with debt had to repay per year and raise the threshold when people needed to start repaying.
This has also not been legislated yet, but would increase the minimum repayment threshold from $54,435 to $67,000 from July 1, and calculate compulsory repayments on the income above the new threshold instead of the total annual income.
It comes after the government changed the way HECS is indexed, with it now tied to the lower of either the Consumer Price Index or Wage Price Index.