At the time, it felt like we’d been dudded.

For 15 years, since the crazy-brave days of Gough Whitlam, university degrees in Australia had been free. Yet here we were, about to start uni in the summer of ’89, knowing we’d be the first lot to cop a student debt under the government’s newly minted Higher Education Contribution Scheme.

University graduates are being burdened with debt.

The cost of my contribution towards an arts degree? A whopping $900 a semester.

If only the kids angrily picketing O-week knew how lucky we really were.

A generation later, my 21-year-old son is also a HECS pioneer – or HELP, as the scheme is now euphemistically acronymised. He started his arts degree in 2021, the first enrolment year after the Morrison government doubled the cost of humanities courses.

He now has a degree and a HELP debt of about $45,000. The debt is indexed at the rate of inflation, which is currently sitting at 4 per cent. This means that when his debt is next tallied by the Australian Tax Office, he’ll owe an additional $1800.

The Australian........

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