Yahoo Finance Australians slugged with new $50,000 HECS charge: 'Unfair'
Aussies wanting to study an arts degree will have to pay more per year than a medical student.
The cost of an arts degree in Australia is set to push beyond the $50,000 mark next year and it's been labelled "deeply counterproductive". New rates have been unveiled showing how much students will have to pay versus how much the government will contribute towards their tertiary education.
According to the Australian Financial Review, a philosophy or history degree will set you back close to $17,000 per year, which takes the total bill at the end of the degree to $50,976. Independent MP Monique Ryan, who has been campaigning for an overhaul of student loan debts, told Yahoo Finance the impact of these high prices is severe and long-lasting.
"Young people are being forced to take on a lifetime of debt by a system which is simply not operating in their best interest," she said.
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"More than 50 per cent of graduates still have a HECS debt at 40. Young people are putting off starting families and buying homes because of these debts.
"A $50,000 Arts degree is unfair and it's deeply counterproductive."
Aussies wanting to study medicine and dentistry will have to pay a little more than $13,200 a year for their degree, while the government will contribute $31,641 per year.
Even with that hefty contribution, a doctor or dentist will still graduate with a HELP debt of nearly $80,000.
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Pharmacy, architecture, performing arts, engineering, and science will set you back $9,314 per year from 2025 and can cost up to $37,256 upon graduation.
Teaching, literature, nursing, languages, agriculture, viticulture, forestry, and fisheries will all cost $4,627 per year and graduates will have a total student loan debt of $13,881.
Job Ready Graduate scheme 'needs to go'
Education minister Jason Clare is under pressure to end the Job Ready Graduates (JRG) scheme, which was brought in by the previous Morrison government.
It was introduced to encourage Aussies to sign up for degrees that had real-world labour market demand like teaching and nursing. The price for those degrees dropped under the scheme, however, those that were found to have little market demand, like arts degrees, skyrocketed in cost.
Ryan told Yahoo Finance while the previous government hoped higher degree prices would push prospective students into more career-driven avenues, Aussies made choices "based on their values and ambitions" instead.
The Universities Accord review, which was released earlier this year, recommended the scheme be scrapped because it had "failed" in its mission.
"The JRG package needs to be replaced. Its purpose of providing price signals to influence student subject choices has failed," the review said.
"Particularly significant was the 113 per cent rise in student contributions for students studying communications, humanities, other society and culture, and human movement."
It added: "[The JRG has] resulted in some students incurring disproportionately large HELP debts relative to future potential earnings, meaning that HELP debts are taking longer and longer to repay."
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