An update on university fee deregulation

This article may be out of date. Please refer to the Good Universities Guide blog for the latest updates in the tertiary sector.

If you’ve been following the federal government’s uni fee reforms, you’ll know that little progress has been made since the initial announcement around the time of the Budget. We’ve put together a quick update to keep you in the loop.

What is fee deregulation?

To recap, the federal government proposed a shake-up of the tertiary education system as part of its annual budget. Although there were some positive changes proposed, talk of fee deregulation has left students worried about the cost of higher education study. Fee deregulation would allow public universities to set their own undergraduate fees, just like private education providers. This means that the current caps on fees ($6152, $8768 and $10,266) would be abolished in 2016, with fee hikes a likely outcome. Some of the other changes include a reduction in the government’s subsidy of tuition fees and an increase to the HELP loan interest rate.

What’s been happening?

• The fee deregulation bill has not yet been passed in the Senate, with the Labor party vowing to reject the bill entirely. Labor’s opposition to the fee deregulation bill will be key to its campaign strategy for the next federal election, due to be held in late 2016. The bill is also being opposed by the Greens and the Palmer United Party.
  
  
• An inquiry into the changes has produced a number of recommendations, including providing funds to universities to allow them to transition to a fully deregulated system and re-examining changes to the HELP loan interest rate. It has also floated the idea of recovering HELP debt from Australians living overseas. Labor senators on the inquiry panel have pushed for a separate bill to be introduced, dealing with ‘non-controversial matters’ such as extending funding for research. The Greens have gone even further, calling for the abolition of student fees altogether.
  
  
• Deregulating fees isn’t proving popular with the public either, with a recent Fairfax poll finding that almost two-thirds of Australians oppose the reforms. Opposition is even greater among uni graduates, at 72 per cent, and stronger still among current tertiary students, at 76 per cent.
  
  
• If approved, it’s possible that the fee reforms will be delayed. With 1 January 2016 the proposed start date, education experts are pushing for a delay to allow the government to give greater consideration to its legislation while also benefiting students by providing more notice of potential fee increases. Delaying the start date has received support from some universities as well as peak body Universities Australia, which is calling for the 2015 cohort of students to be exempt from any changes.