Education: Will University Fees Be An Issue that Stop People From Earning Their Degree.?

A Labor TV campaign will kick off tonight and will highlight the Opposition’s determination to destroy government plans to deregulate university funding as a major priority.

The “debt sentence” campaign will claim degrees could cost young people much as $100,000.

It will be aimed at young people of university age and parents and its start will coincide with high school exams and the period when graduates are starting to look at uni courses. The ad will be run “strongly” in Sydney, Brisbane, Tasmania and regional areas, said a Labor source.

Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has told Labor MPs he wants to destroy the plan either now or in an election campaign.

Mr Shorten will be the focus of the campaign because of the inspiration of his late mother Ann who was prominent academic and encouraged her children to study.

A committee inquiry report into the government’s bill for deregulation and other changes to the university sector is expected to be published today, and the Senate will debate the issue this week.

Although Labor, along with the Greens and Palmer United Party say they are opposed to the bill, the Group of Eight, an informal network of Australia’s most established universities, is urging the Senate to pass the legislation with some amendments.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten is fighting changes to university fees.

Opposition leader Bill Shorten is fighting changes to university fees. Source: News Corp Australia

The Abbott Government’s plans, released as part of the Budget earlier this year, include allowing universities to set their own fees starting in 2016, to allow an increase in interest charges of up to six per cent on debts and for a 20 per cent reduction in the Federal Government’s contribution to student’s fees.

The income threshold at which students start paying back their debt would also be lowered to $50,638 from July 1, 2016. The cut-off for 2014-15, was set at $53,345.

Mr Shorten told a caucus meeting in Canberra today that Labor’s campaign against the changes was being run in the tradition of the late prime minister Gough Whitlam, who brought in free university tuition.

The new Labor Party campaign will include posters and online and television advertising to force the government to drop its uni changes.

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University campaign: Inspired by Gough Whitlam.

University campaign: Inspired by Gough Whitlam. Source: Supplied

“The Liberals’ plan to deregulate university fees means we will wind up with a two-tiered Americanised system,” Mr Shorten said.

The United States has one of the most expensive tertiary systems in the world. Federal funding is reserved solely for military institutions and while state universities provide some assistance for local students, the privatisation of higher education has led to a system of expensive and inaccessible Ivy League schools at the top and community colleges at the bottom.

Community colleges cater almost exclusively to the lower socio economic students with yearly fees averaging around $3,000 while private universities charge an average of $30,000 a year for a four-year degree.

Mr Shorten has vowed to ensure the Abbott Government’s proposed changes to Australia’s university education sector was a major issue at the next federal election, due in 2016.

“We will fight the Liberals’ debt sentence and we will prevail,” Mr Shorten said.

In an online letter to voters, Mr Shorten says: “No matter where you grew up or what school you went to, no Australian should have to pay $100,000 for a degree. It’s just not fair”.

PLENTY OF OPPOSITION

Labor, the Greens and Palmer United Party’s Clive Palmer have all said they are opposed to the package.

“A free education’s very important,” Mr Palmer said told ABC this morning.

“You don’t want to graduate with $100,000 or $200,000 debt, or you’ll become an accountant or something very mundane.”

“You want these sorts of people (students) to take risks, so you get the Googles, the Apples, the Yahoos,” he said. “They’re not going to take risks if they’ve got $200,000 in debt already. And we become a society with no ideas at all.”

Palmer: “A free education’s very important”.

Palmer: “A free education’s very important”. Source: News Corp Australia

“We (the PUP) believe that Christopher Pyne’s benefited from a free education policy, otherwise he wouldn’t be where he is now. Bill Shorten’s had a free education policy, and I think Tony Abbott had it too, although that may have been a Jesuit-funded one.”

“We’re a low debt country, why shouldn’t we invest in our own people, in our own children?”

WILL DEGREES COST $100,000?

The Abbott Government has defended its plans, with Education Minister Christopher Pyne saying deregulation will boost university freedom, productivity and dynamism.

He said in June that competition between universities would actually force student fees down.

“If universities think they can get away with charging exorbitant fees I think you’ll find that they’ll face very intense competition,” he told ABC.

His remarks came after University of Melbourne vice-chancellor Glyn Davis said fees might have to rise by as much as 61 per cent in some courses due to funding cuts and deregulation.

The National Tertiary Education Union has suggested fees could exceed $100,000.

However, others including Australian Technology Network executive director Vicki Thomson, have disputed claims that university degrees will cost up to $100,000, saying they would find “few, if any, students willing to pay for them”
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