As you may have noticed, the Government has announced changes to student loans and debts, subject (eyeroll) to their re-election. Tick; even the Greens are taking credit.
But, and here’s the but, they do little about how the current system, and I am moderating my language for publication, screws over students by burdening them with stonking big debts. Doing something more than just fiddling at the margins would be very, very, expensive. Fixing decades of using a group as a cash cow tends to be that. If Governments and pundits don’t want to bear the expense, OK, but in that case stop pretending to care about students past, present and future.
Some preliminaries. First, I used to run HECS (sic) for a living, but as a Delta-caste program person mostly away from policy. Secondly, Michael Keating has written on these matters, but I have some different views.
In 1989 when HECS (not sic) commenced, I had hair and a motorcycle and was studying, and a full year of study cost a flat $1800. That’s about $4700 in today’s dollars or about five per cent of Average Weekly Ordinary Time Earnings (AWOTE), which is pretty much smack on $100,000. Back then repayment started with incomes over 85 per cent of AWOTE. Compulsory repayments were one to three percent of total income. The deal was intended to be, if you paid your debt, good, if not, fine, either way, no biggie.
Today fees range from about four per cent (lower than 1989, but there’s a twist coming) to........