Talk:Tertiary education fees in Australia

/Rewrite

Commonwealth Supported Places - Permanent Residents

The article says Commonwealth supported places are available to citizens of Australia and New Zealand and some Australian permanent residents.

It is my understanding that commonwealth supported places are available to all Australian permanent residents, however HELP is only available to Australian citizens and permanent residents who hold an humanitarian permanent residency visa. New Zealand citizens and all other classes of permanent resident have no access to HELP (meaning that they have to pay the student contribution up front).

(The exception is people who are permanent residents, and somehow manage to not be resident in Australia while undertaking the units for which they are claiming a commonwealth contribution). —Preceding unsigned comment added by P1mason (talk • contribs) 06:41, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Link is here [1]

If nobody has any objections, I'll change the word some to all in the next few days.

P1mason (talk) 06:33, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Re: Move to Higher Education Loan Programme

I was under the impression HECS and HELP were two different entities.

Has this changed.

The last leaflet I was mailed before finishing seemed to suggest that things had not gone quite this far. --ZayZayEM 13:40, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"From 2005, eligible students will have access to deferred payment arrangements through the Higher Education Loan Programme (HELP). :The HELP scheme consists of three loans:

• HECS-HELP
• FEE-HELP
• OS-HELP (only available to undergraduates)."

I wish it wasn't true either... We need to go into HECS-HELP vs FEE-HELP and OS-HELP, I don't quite have the time. The page is here: [2]

-- Aaron Hill 04:54, Feb 15, 2005 (UTC)

• • Meh, I got out just in time it seems. And I'm skipping the country =P --ZayZayEM 13:30, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

• UPDATE

HECS are now HECS-HELP. HECS-HELP refers to Commonwealth supprted places, OS is for Australian students overseas, and FEE-HELP (formerly PELS) are for postgraduate students. HECS-HELP can consist of an optional upfront payments for a discount. This is not to be confused with Full-Fee places, wich take the full amount upfront (for lower entrance requirements).

There should also be some discussion about the new 8 year full-time and 16-year part time limit on HECS-HELP loans, and cap on PELS/Fee-Help loans.

Students can only study for a MAXIMUM of 8 years (ft) under HECS based/Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP), and then are no longer entitled to CSP courses.

There are PELS (FEE-HELP) loans for post-graduate/honours courses, but not every university offers PELS places at the post graduate level, leaving only the possibility of full-fee places.

FEE-HELP has now been limited to a lifelong maximum of $50,000 (when it was formerly unlimited).

Updated the main page. --Ozguy 01:29, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

FEE-HELP is available for undergraduate courses also. - Aaron Hill 13:02, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks, I never realised it was also for undergrad, given most are HECS-Based. There's also a 20% loan fee associated with using FEE-HELP for undergraduate degrees. Should I include this in the article? - Ozguy 08:33, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

History improvements

I seem to recall that there was always the option of paying HECS up front at a discounted rate. This should be mentioned if it's true.

The article says "When introduced it was a fee charged to all university students of $1,800" -- what was the basis of the fee? Per-subject? Did part-time students pay the same as full-time students? From my limited time at uni, I seem to recall it being based on class hours or credit points or something. It then goes on to say "When first introduced, your HECS was roughly AU$2000 per year of full-time study, irrespective of course or institution." so these should be made consistent

Shermozle 17:26, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

According to the Universities Australia website the discount when HECS was first introduced in 1989 was 15%, it was then increased to 25% in 1993 and dropped back to 20% in 2005. [3]

The annual rate of $1,800 was for a standard full time student, so those studying more or less than full time are charged pro rata. I'll try and write some of this up properly when I have a little more time.

Krisgesling (talk) 04:58, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

I might also add quick bit on the introduction of the Higher Education Administration Charge (HEAC) in 1987, more recently called the General Service Charge (GSC), and then its removal through Voluntary Student Unionism, though I'm sure VSU has its own article and hence won't go into detail.

Krisgesling (talk) 05:14, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

What does this mean?

"HECS-HELP (formerly HECS) maintains the same principles of HECS, however have since undergone major changes."

I'm not quite sure what this is trying to get at. HECS-HELP was an intermediate plan that followed HECS and has now undergone major changes to become HELP? (I don't live in Australia so I'm not up on the latest wranglings over this.) Shermozle 17:35, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

It's not that difficult. HECS-HELP is the same as the HECS payment system, it still maintains the same method of deferring university tuition, the main difference is the large 25% increase in tuition costs, and the government's decision to limit access to education after only 8 years. Hope that helps. -- PSYCH 12:29, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

• • HECS did not become "HELP" it is just now called HECS-HELP. I don't know why someone changed it the first place! I'll change it back to the correct title of HECS-HELP. -- PSYCH 08:50, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Howard's 40% increase

Howard increased HECS by an avergage of 40% & introduced a three tier system. So, how is this average taken? Is each tier given equal weighting? Or is it the average taken over the total amount of HECS paid? User:Jimp 16Jul05

compulsory repayment for 2006-07 year

I received my HELP statement with the new threshold for compulsory repayment. I will update the table.

cheers Visik 13:59, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Limits on Education

What happened to all information about the limitations to education? There is now no mention on the maximum 6 year (12 full-time semester maximum) entitlement to study. Quite a serious limitation, I don't know why it was removed. Someperson203 13:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Seeing as how no one responded, I'll revert that section to add the facts. If anyone objects, discuss it here. 08:32, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

TAFE is Tertiary too

There are many tertiary courses that aren't covered by the schemes mentioned. The history of tertiary education in Australia goes back to the Mechanics Institutes that predate the Universities. matturn 01:25, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point. University-centric people (like me) probably tend to think of universities when they hear the term "tertiary education". However, tafes are obviously also tertiary education institutions. In fact, I would say the term 'tertiary education' is only really useful because it includes universities and other institutions like tafes (if we only want to talk about universities, then we can just say 'university education'). This article (as it is now) is really only about university education fees. Maybe the best way to go is to use the language of the schemes that the article is talking about - ie: "higher education". Then again, this is not very clear language. I guess the best way to go would be to leave the article as being about "tertiary education fees", and include material about tafes, etc. -- DonkeyKong64 (Mathematician in training) 16:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Problems with HECs/HELP

I'm currently a uni student, VP of the North in the TUU and there's nothing on this article about the problems with the HECS/HELP scheme even though it's much talked about among uni students in Australia particularly among student council reps. There should be something on here about how many students don't pay off their HECs debt, going overseas or even dying before their HECs can be paid off. This should be on here, it's a serious issue. I'll try and put something together. Katana Geldar 09:02, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

In Watts, M., (1997) 'Gender Segregation in Higher Educational Attainment in Australia 1978-94' in Higher Education Vol. 34, No. 1, pp. 45-61, it states that:

"It has been calculated that, on the basis of their expected graduate incomes, women, on average, will have paid back 77% of their (Labor Government) HECS by the age of 65, whereas the corresponding male figure is 93% (Chapman 1996, p. 44)."

Unfortunately it doesn't provide a proper reference for Chapman but I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to track down. Again I'll write it up properly when I get a chance.

Krisgesling (talk) 05:06, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Removal of Domestic Undergraduate Full Fee places

In the introductory paragraph it talks about domestic unsupported students paying up to $100,000 however it was my impression that the Rudd Government removed Domestic Undergraduate Full Fee (DUFF) places. When I get a chance I'll track down some reference and perhaps add it to the history.

Krisgesling (talk) 05:10, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Non-Bachelors courses

Current content is excessively skewed toward undergraduate Bachelors courses. Besides non-university education (TAFE), there are also shorter university courses (Diplomas?) and more advanced university courses (Masters, PhD) that should be covered. —DIV (2002:6575:32AB:0:0:0:6575:32AB (talk) 07:09, 1 June 2014 (UTC)) N.B. This signature should have read, "101.117.50.171 (talk) 09:15, 1 June 2014 (UTC)".

Please help this article

I work in a university but got confused by the end of the second para of the lede. Could someone who really knows this stuff please sort the article out? Particularly by separating (a) review of the history from (b) setting out what a student needs to know right now. If the 2014 Budget proposals go through and are then simply incorporated here, I fear that the article will be of little use to anybody. Wikiain (talk) 02:45, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

The current fees are at http://studyassist.gov.au/sites/studyassist/helppayingmyfees/csps/pages/student-contribution-amounts#2014 TRS-80 (talk) 13:58, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

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Clear up the history

The history section seems to focus too much on certain details while leaving the major policy implications unmentioned. For example there's a lot of text devoted to the "SLE" and other limits but not much talk of changes to the discount system or valuation of courses or the repayment system. There were lots of changes in the 90s.

I've found a really good source for this info here

--Zyzzek (talk) 02:31, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

2020 Australian University Fee Adjustments

I'm not fit to edit myself, but thought it important to mention that this year, 2020, the fee structures for Commonwealth Supported Places in the HECS scheme has been overhauled, with STEM & agricultural fields being subsidised dramatically more and humanities fields dramatically less:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-23/what-university-fees-increasing-how-funding-works/12381362

~Angus Small

Rates change every year. New rates are at https://www.dese.gov.au/higher-education-loan-program/approved-hep-information/funding-clusters-and-indexed-rates ~chris w — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wongcr (talk • contribs) 00:25, 6 July 2021 (UTC)

Abolition of University Fees

This section is currently fairly subjective and should at least have a reference to an economic paper for increased university participation increasing future government tax revenue that is sufficient to pay off the debt incurred at the current participation rate. In particular, whether the increased tax revenue is always tenable subject to interest rate and if the probability of brain drain out of the country would impact on such an argument.

At the very least, the subjective sentence at the end of the section should be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:8003:79A0:A400:EC08:165:A408:B786 (talk) 04:31, 7 February 2021 (UTC)